".,1 » ■■ > 






.)^ 







■ ■>■■;'.•,•> I^wg-j 





o 

\^ 

m 

CO 

l-H 

w 

o 



THE LIFE 



AND 



Teachinp^s of Our Lord 



IN VERSE 

BEING A COMPLETE HARMONIZED EXPOSITION 
OF THE FOUR GOSPELS, 

With Original Notes,, Textual Index, Etc. 

By ABRAHAM COLES, M. D., LL.D. 

w 

Author of "Dies Ir/E in Thirteen Versions," 

"The Microcosm and Other Poems," 

"Old Gems in New Settings," 

etc., etc. 



Two Volumes in One. 
Vol. I. The Evangel. (Second Edition.) 

Vol. n. — The Light of the World. 



^0V.20 18C4 V 

rFWAsv « 



NEW YORK 
D, APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1885 



?6 i3r7 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by 

ABRAHAM COLES, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Advertiser Printing House, 
nevvaRk, n. j. 



CONTENTS. 



I'AGE. 



Symbols of the Evangelists, etc., .... vii. 

Introduction, . viii. 

Proem. — Invocation. Blindnesss of Unbelief. False 
Science, Agnostic and Atheistic. Attempts at 
7Vorld-7naking. What Evolution is, and how 
li?nited. Deification of Force. Sense of ac- 
countability. Revelation i-esponding to the cry 
for light. The " Gospel of Brutality.'' Dar- 
win, Virchow, Agassiz. Poetry and Note. . 3 
I. The Logos, — N'ote [pp. 18-2^') giving a sum- 
jnajy of the Creeds and Christologies of Ancient 
and Modern times. . . . -. . 13 
II. The Lineage. ....... 26 

III. The Annunciation. — A^ote : Herod the Great. 29 

IV. The Nativity. — Fulfilment of particular proph- 

ecies. Hymn. Note ( pp. S^~59) '■ "^^^^ ^'^'^"^ 
genealogies reconciled. ..... 4.4 

V. The Naming. — Note : On the signification of 
Names. The Tetragraminaton . Mis-naming. 
Jesu dulcis memoria. . . . . . 65 

VI. The Presentation in the Temple. . . 70 
VII. The Worship of the Magi. — A^ote {pp. 77-8gi)\ 
]Vho they were and whence. The Star. Cu- 
rious coincidences. . . . . . . 77 

VIII. Early Childhood. — Hymn 91 

IX. The Son of the Law. — A^ote {pp. p4-iof): 
The Apocfyphal Gospels contrasted with the 
Canonical, etc. ...... 94 



iv. CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

X. The Voice in the Wilderness. — Note {pp. 
106-11S) : Oft the 7neaning of the Greek word 
rendered Repetit. The Baptisju of Repentance^ 
and Regetieratiofi. . . . . .104 

XI. The Baptism. — Note {pp. I20-I2J)\ In what 
sense John did not know Jestis, Note {pp. 
1 26-141): The Jordan and Dead Sea de- 
scribed. . . . . . . .120 

XII. The Temptation. — Note {pp. 1 42-1 6(J)'. Chrisfs 

two-fold nature. Potest ?ion pec care. . . 142 

XIII. The First Disciples 170 

XIV. The Marriage in Cana. — Note {pp. i86-20'j)\ 

Christ and His Mother. Mariolatry. Water 
turjied into wine. Note { pp. 208- 2 j 4) : Was 
the wine intoxicating. . . . . .185 

XV. Farewell: Land of Gennesaret. — N'ote : 

Conjectures. Solomon s Song. Psalm xxiii. 235 

XVI. Journey: Beyond the Jordan. — Historical 
episode^ describing places and events covering 
the time from Jacob. Psalm cxxxvi. Note 
{pp. 2^^-262): Description of Eastern Pal- 
estine. Note {pp. 26^-2'/ 2): Geological for- 
mation. Note {pp. 2^^-284)'. Respecting 
Jeptha and his daughter. Note {pp. 324- 
JJ2): Respecting Joshuas commanding the 
Sun to stand still. Hymns. See explanatory 

note, p. 371 251 

Journey: Arrival at Jerusalem. — Hymn. . 367 
XVII. The Lord's Prayer. — Note on '\laily bread.'] . 372 



SYMBOLS OF THE EVANGELISTS, ETC. 

One of the earliest Symbols of the Evangelists was a Greek cross, with 
a scroll or book in each angle — emblems of the writers of the Four Gos- 
pels. The second symbol was that of the four rivers which rise in Para- 
dise. Sometimes the Saviour with a lamb, or the symbolic Agnus Dei, was 
represented on an eminence, with the four streams flowing from beneath 
Him. Their next symbol was the four fiery creatures of Ezekiel's vision. 
(Ezek. i : 5.) These were interpreted — by the Jews, as representing the 
Archangels; also the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel — by 
the early Christians, as emblems of the four Evangelists. The "four 
beasts " of the Apocalypse (Rev. iv : 6-11), received the same explana- 
tion and became their recognized distinctive symbols. 

" We concur with those," says St. Augustine, " who, in interpreting the 
Vision of the Four Living Creatures in the Apocalypse which represent 
the Four Gospels, assign the Lion, the King of all Beasts, to St. Matthew. 
and the Ox, the Sacrificial Victim, to St. Luke. The Apocalypse itself 
says, ' The Lion of the tribe of Judah prevailed to open the book;' and 
thus it designates the Lion as symbolical of Christ our King. St. Mark 
following St. Matthew, relates what Christ did in his Human Nature, 
without special reference to His functions as King or Priest, and is there- 
fore fitly symbolized in the Apocalyptic vision as the Man. These three 
living creatures — the Lion, the Ox, the Man — walk on the earth. The 
first three Evangelists describe especially those things which Christ did in 
our flesh, and relate the precepts which He delivered on the duties to be 
performed by us while we walk on earth and dwell in the flesh. But St. 
John soars to heaven as an Eagle, above the clouds of human infirmity, 
and reveals to us the mysteries of Christ's Godhead, and of the Trinity in 
Unity, and the felicities of the Life Eternal; and gazes on the Light of 
Immutable Truth with a keen and steady ken — This Evangelical Quater- 
nion is the fourfold Car of the Lord, upon which He rides throughout 
the world." 

Jerome's assignment, which is the one generally adopted, differs from 



vi. SYMBOLS OF THE EVANGELISTS, ETC. 

the above. According to him the Man belongs to Matthew, because he 
speaks more of the human than the divine nature of the Saviour : the 
Lion to Mark, first, because his Gospel begins with the mission of John 
the Baptist, " the voice of one crying in the wilderness " — crying with "a 
loud voice as when a lion roareth," a lion coming up from the swellings of 
Jordan; second, because the Lion as king of beasts typifies Christ's royal 
dignity, to which Mark gives special prominence; and lastly, because he 
is emphatically the historian of the Resurrection of which the lion is an 
emblem, in allusion to an oriental tradition, according to which, the 
young lions are born dead, and after three days are made alive by the 
breath or the roar of the sire. These symbols of the Four Evangelists 
were held to be symbolical of the Redeemer in His fourfold character as 
man, as king, as high-priest, and as God. Thorwaldsen's bas-reliefs are " 
famous. Those seen stamped on the cover of this book are other forms 
or modes of representation. 

In the upper left hand corner of the cover may be seen also the mono- 
gram of Christ, composed of two Greek letters, the X=:Ch, and P=:R, 
standing for Christos. This monogram was venerated, not only as con- 
taining the name of Christ, but as forming likewise the sign of the 
cross. It made the top part of the Lahariiin or Standard which was borne 
before the Emperor Constantine after his conversion. The monogram 
in the upper right hand corner is the familiar I. H. S., usually consid- 
ered as standing iox Jesus Homimim Salvator, Jesus the Saviour of Men, 
or In hac {cruce) sahis, In this (cross) is salvation; but it was originally 
I H 2, the first three letters of 'IH20Y2 (lesous), the Greek form of Jesus. 
In the corners at the bottom of the cover are Alpha and Omega, the 
first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, having reference to Rev. i. 3. 

It was not till the sixth century that the plain cross became a Crucifix, 
no longer an emblem but an image. Other symbols used in Christian 
Art are the Fish (see the Evangel, p. 85); the Lamb; the Pelican, feed- 
ing her young with her own blood; the Lion; the Dove (the Holy 
Ghost); the Crown (victory and sovereignty); the Palm (martyrdom); 
the Lily (purity); the Ship (the Church); the Dragon (sin, idolatry), etc. 



INTRODUCTION. 

OF Lives of Christ, the present age is singularly 
prolific, but none of these are in verse. And yet 
it would be difficult to assign any good reason why a 
poetic Life should not be written— a veritable Life, not 
a Christiad. The Four Gospels, alike in the inspired 
Original and in our half-inspired Version, are semi- 
poetic, and in a sense epical Who has not felt, in read- 
ing his English Bible, the rhythmic charm of its simple, 
sweet and melodious prose, rising in the lyric parts— in 
a manner so easy and natural as scarcely to be perceived, 
like the great ocean lifted upward by the tide— into the 
sounding sublimities and solemn organ harmonies of 
Hebrew verse— which has this divine peculiarity among 
others, that it does not, like the great master-pieces of 
Latin and Greek, for example, cease to be poetry when 
Hterally translated. 

The Gospels— with this poetic base at the start, and 
an easy convertibility into metric form, of which Mr. 
Longfellow's *' Divine Tragedy" has afforded recent 
proof and excellent illustration— so far from forbidding, 
extend all possible sanction and encouragement to any 



viii, INTRODUCTION. 

one who is willing to put them into verse. Doubtless, 
to do this worthily and well, something besides artistic 
skill is needed. As a first requisite, one must have mas- 
tered the meaning by diligent, critical, and reverential 
study of the text, aided by happy God-given power of 
insight, spiritual as well as poetic, so that in the inevita- 
ble change of words there may take place no change of 
sense, and no spilling of the life. While the task is con- 
fessedly delicate and difficult, and may be thought to 
argue presumption on the part of him who attempts it, 
the guilt ought not to be hastil}^ assumed, for a deep 
feeling of insufficiency is not incompatible with the bold- 
ness ol great undertakings. 

God speaks by whomsoever He please's. He who 
made us, placed, we must believe, somewhere in the 
depths of our being a portion of His truth ; so that what 
a man utters, provided it comes from his truest and in- 
nermost, is, as it were, the voice of God speaking in him 
and from him. All truth, whether found within us or 
without us, is from Him. Out of the unsophisticated 
mouths of babes and sucklings He perfect^ praise, re- 
vealing to them divinest things hidden from the wise 
and prudent. 

" The Evangel " is meant to be a poetic version, and 
verse by verse paraphrase, so far as it goes, of the Four 
Gospels, so called — anciently and properly regarded as 



INTRODUCTION. Ix. 

one — one Divine Evangelion (meaning Glad Tidings), 
synonymous with the history of one Life of the Son 
of God upon the earth. Irengeus, speaking of them 
collectively, calls them the '' four-sided or four-formed 
Gospel " (Evangelion tetramorphon); and this composite 
unity was further set forth in the Cherubic " Tetra- 
morph" — made up of the Apocalyptic " four living crea- 
tures," blended and incorporated in a single form, not as 
now represented separately — symbolizing the Four 
Evangelists. 

Although the narrative here given may seem to stop 
short of the end, it will be found, nevertheless, if we 
mistake not, to justify to some extent its claim, even in 
its present state, to be called a Life, by the fullness of its 
presentation of Christ's person, character, office and 
work, as foreshadowed in type, predicted in prophecy, 
and realized in His actual advent in the fullness of time — 
to which may be added, as reflected subsequently in the 
various Creeds of Christendom. A proper comprehen- 
sion of what Fie was, is so inclusive of what He did, that 
His particular acts of power and mercy, in all the won- 
derfulness of their divinity, being no more than the 
necessary and inevitable outcome of His demonstrated 
Godhead, add little or nothing to the certainty of our 
faith or the completeness of our knowledge. The power 
of the Son of Man on earth to forgive sins is as well 
established by one miracle as a thousand. 



X. INTRODUCTION. 

Coleridge remarks : '' Commentators have a notable 
trick of passing siccissimis pcdilms (' with the driest feet') 
over difificult places." And Young too, satirizes : 

" How commentators each dark passage shun 
And hold their farthing candle to the sun" — 

but in all honesty the author of the Evangel pleads 
''Not guilty," to the charge: for, not only has he not 
shunned, but he has even gone out of his way in pursuit 
of what is dark and difficult, not, he hopes, in the spirit 
of presumption, but from a deep conviction that the only 
way to be useful is to give help where help is needed ; 
to remove stumbling blocks ; and clear up passages 
" hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned 
and unstable wrest unto their own destruction.'' Ac- 
cordingly in his Notes on the Dead Sea and the site of 
the Cities of the Plain; on the Temptation; on the words 
and miracle of our Lord at the Marriage in Cana ; on 
Jephthah's Sacrifice of his Daughter ; and on Joshua's 
Command to the Sun to stand still, he has ventured to 
state his own views at considerable length, in the humble 
hope that they may contribute to give quiet to some 
minds dissatisfied with current theories and explana- 
tions. If any reader differs from him, he has the right 
to differ, and it need, therefore, be no ground of quarrel. 
He hopes to have said nothing to provoke the '' odium 



INTRODUCTION. xi. 

theologicum," whose unmeasured bitterness is proverbial. 
The author is notified that exception will probably be 
taken to the poetical form of the paraphrase. He con- 
fesses he does not see why rhyme should be a crime or 
verse felony. Poetry is older than prose. Of this we 
have what may be called paleontological proof in the 
structure of all languages. Our everyday speech is 
fossil poetry. Words which are now dead were once 
alive. The farther we recede and the lower we descend, 
the more do these wonderful petrifactions of old forms of 
poetic thought and feeling abound. They belong espe- 
cially to the earliest times — to the fluid and formative 
period of language. Poetry is unfallen speech. Paradise 
knew no other ; for no other would suffice to answer the 
need of those ecstatic days of innocence, when 

" With a soul as strong as mountain river 

Man poured out praise to the Almighty Giver." 

Words are free-born, and not the vassals of the gruff 
tyrants of prose to do their bidding only. They have 
the same right to dance and sing, as the dew-drops have 
to sparkle, and the stars to shine: and in the general 
jubilee consequent upon the angelic announcement of 
" the glad tidings of great joy which shall be to all 
people ; " when the hills are joyful, and the floods and 
the trees of the field are clapping their hands, and uni- 
versal nature is testifying a miraculous delight, it were 



xii. INTRODUCTION. 

Strange and pitiful if these free children of the air were 
not allowed to rejoice with the rest. But this general 
defence of poetry is not meant to be a defence of the 
author's own. 

He wished to make an experiment in poetical herme- 
neutics. The admitted failure of all prose paraphrases, 
justified, he thought, the undertaking of a poetical one ; 
in the construction of which, he hoped to be able to 
avoid their capital error, that of substituting the general 
for the specific, the philosophic for the picturesque. *' The 
lower animals recognize and are grateful for kind treat- 
ment, but My rational creatures are insensible to it," 
may, as has been said, be the full philosophical equivalent 
of '' The ox knoweth its owner, and the ass his master's 
crib, but Israel doth not know, My people doth not 
consider," but what a difference in the effect of the two 
statements ! He believed that success in his attempt 
would mainly depend upon his ability to transfuse the 
Semetic life into Japhetic forms, to bring together thus 
the East and the West, unite the Orient with the Occi- 
dent. A meter and a structure too artificial, like Pope's 
Messiah for example, he knew would defeat this. A 
simplicity bordering on homeliness, and a fetterless free- 
dom allied to prose, he felt were essential ; and he framed 
his verse accordingly. 

After this, he knew of no better way than, keeping as 



INTRODUCTION. xiii. 

near to the original as possible, to say what he had to 
say in the fewest and fittest words he could command, 
using- no term for any reason whatever that he would 
not use if he were writing prose ;* aiming in all cases to 
be faithful rather than fine ; and sparing no pains to be 
critically exact in giving the true sense of the Sacred 
Text, on the right interpretation of which hang all our 
hopes, and for that matter, too, all our creeds, for out- 
side of this Record which God has given of His Son, 
we know nothing and can know nothing. In the prose- 
cution of so mighty a task, covering the whole field of 
Theology, and constituting in itself, when completed, 
an entire Body of Divinity, it would not be strange if he 
had fallen short. In his daring attempt 

'* On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth 
So great an object", 

he is free to admit that there is a good deal of temerity, 
and it would argue his utter unfitness for his work if 
he did not profoundly feel it. He has sought to cast 
down and tread under foot all egotisms, vanities and low. 

* Cowper remarks : " Every man conversant with verse-writing, knows, and knows 
by painful experience, that the familiar style is of all styles the most difficult to suc- 
ceed in. To make verse speak the language of prose without being prosaic, to mar- 
shal the words of it in such an order as they might naturally take in falling from the 
lips of an extemporary speaker, yet without meanness, harmoniously, elegantly, and 
without seeming to displace a syllable for the sake of the rhyme, is one of the most 
arduous tasks a poet can undertake." 



xiv. INTRODUCTION. 

ambitions ; and if in his weakness and unworthiness he 
has done anything to make the adorable Redeemer the 
object of a warmer love and a firmer trust; to draw 
closer the bands of a common brotherhood in an undi- 
vided fellowship of Christian love ; to make the Bible 
seem a dearer and diviner Book, its pages more luminous, 
its promises more precious, the heaven it reveals more 
certain, he would prize it infinitely more than the greatest 
epic success. 

One of his objects has been, particularly in the Notes, 
to mediate between the student of Theology and the 
general reader, and put the latter in possession of 
knowledge not readily accessible. He has been careful 
to exclude everything fictitious, apocryphal and fabu- 
lous. In this respect his work differs from all Christiads 
and Messiads formed on the Homeric model, with their 
cumbrous machinery and gratuitous mythologies. 



THE EVANGEL. 

(second edition) 
BEING THE FIRST PART OF 

The Life and Teachings of Our Lord. 

IN VERSE. 



These tilings are written, that ye might believe tJiaf 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believ- 
ing ye might have life through His name. — John xx : 

31- 

To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are- 
all things, and we in Him ; and one Lord Jesus 
Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. — 
I Cor. viii : 6. 

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners 
spake in time past unto the fathers by the propJiets, 
hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, 
whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom 
also He made the worlds. — Heb. i : 1,2. 



PROEM. 



SPIRIT DIVINE, the adding up of gifts, 
Communicable Godhead, be my Guest ! 
Grant me the true afflatus that uplifts, 
And be the oracle within my breast ! 
Guide me into all truth! bestow Thy best- 
Life, light, and love, that clarity of being 
Without which there can be no certainty of seeing, 

No right discernment, singleness of eye ! 
In vain Thy beams illuminate the page : 
In vain the azure of that blessed sky 
Blazons dear attributes from age to age : 
Blinded philosopher, and darkling sage, 
The wise and prudent, seeing, nothing see. 
Because there dwells in them no true sincerity. 



4 PROEM. 

O ignorance and folly of the wise ! 
Men never tire of endless labor, spent 

In building Babels, and in babbling lies ; 

Blowing up bubbles of most gay ostent, 

Mere emptiness, on solemn trifling bent : 

They from creation the Creator take, 

And then th' astonished air with their Eurekas shake. 

Of that called Science, much is only guess . 
False as the Koran half that it declares : 
It feigns beginnings full of foolishness"^ — 
Faith hath its ladder which it climbs by prayers — 
This jumps the moon in fault of facts for stairs; 
And Ignorance, that cannot make a pin, 
Will make you myriad worlds and throw as many in. 

* Mr. Darwin, in his recent work, " The Descent of Man," p. 198, says : 
" The early progenitors of man were no doubt once covered with hair, both 
sexes having beards," etc. ; and further on: " Our progenitors no doubt 
were arboreal in their habits." Now, if Mr. D. had said simply, " / have 
no doubt," it would then have been merely a question of personal sincer- 
ity and credulity. But saying, as he does, there is no doubt, the propo- 
sition is so transparently false that he lays himself open to the charge of 
conscious falsehood; and of offering, moreover, direct insult to eminent 
physicists the world over, who, it is notorious, do doubt, scout and utterly 
deny what he so recklessly affirms. 

Positiveness of assertion is a most unphilosophical substitute for proof. 
It savors of charlatanry. Mr. Huxley (one of Mr. D.'s warmest admirers, 
by the way) remarks: " One fact is as powerful in negativing a hypoth- 
esis as five hundred ; " and admits that the hypothesis of Natural Selection 
supplementing Evolution as an explanation of Origins, fails in the vital 



PROEM. 5 

Science is certainty, is truth found out, 
Not dreams about the genesis of man, 
Monstrous assumings, that admit no doubt 
He from the lowest forms of hfe began. 
We dare to call him cheat and charlatan, 
Pretender, and no architect at all. 
Who builds on airy guess a leaning, tottering wall. 

A specious likelihood helps not the case ; 
One single proof were worth a million such : 
Science is never broader than its base ; 
Th' extended fabric topples at a touch, 
Jutting o'er fact— a hair's breadth is too much— 
For there is emptiness and the abyss, 
Hungry for unrealities as vain as this. 

point of Hybridism. In other words, it trips at the threshold. It breaks 
down at the first trial. The first step conducts to a dead wall, or a closed 
door which the Darwinian key ought to open, but does not ; so we con- 
clude so we are sure, so sure that the testimony of a thousand locksmiths 
would not make us surer, it is not the right one. The key is the proof. 
The right key is the key that unlocks ; and until we come with that, Nature 
sternly bids us away. It is an affront to her to seek, burglariously, to 
force an entrance by picking the lock or by breaking it : or by overleaping 
the ^yall. " He that entereth not by the door, but chmbeth up some other 
way, is a thief and a robber." . 

But hybridism is not the only thing. Darwinism belies tendency. 1 his, 
if the monkey were the father of the man, ought to be always upward 
in the human direction, but it is not. The resemblance of the head of the 
baby ape to that of the human infant has been called " terrible." Now it 
is a si-nificant fact that development from this point is not manward 



6 PROEM. 

It is the greater that includes the less, 

Not less the greater. One is not made four 
But by addition. From all singleness 
Th' involved unit is evolved, no more — 
Development increases not the store — 
After its kind each thing unfolds its powers : 
Man sums and tops them all — and by addition towers 

Not evolution ; otherwise he ought, 
When dormant in the moUusk, to have woke, 
Growing to more till to perfection brought, 
Seen to be nearer as each morning broke — 
As from the acorn grows unstayed the oak — 
In straight progression to his goal and bound : 
Not mollusk after mollusk circling round and round, 

but beastward. The chasm between the latent beast and the latent man 
grows wider and wider every hour. The largest ape, as Virchow remarks, 
keeps its baby brain. It is that part which grows least, while the 
growth of the jaws is enormous — whence he concludes that by progressive 
development an ape can never become a man ; on the contrary, that this 
very development has created the deep gulf between them. As a further 
mark of beasthood, he points to the fact that apes are born comparatively 
mature, soon reach their hmit of perfection, and die when man has scarcely 
outgrown his childhood. No species can, properly speaking, walk. They 
are climbmg animals, and the tree is their natural home. The arrest of 
development in the microcephalic idiot does not make him a monkey. 
He is a human being still, partially changed by disease. 

But Evolutionists do not stop at the Ape ; do not stop even at the lower 
forms of life, but make the starting-point of genetic development to be raw 
Matter and Force ; and all that follows simply an affair of dynamics. 



PROEM. 7 

Through all the ages not advanced a jot. 
Which is he, then, philosopher or fool ? 
Who gropes in protoplasm and finds a dot, 
And calls it man, according to the school. 
Far famed, of whittlers, whittling down by rule 
Humanity, till of humanity bereft, 
A microscopic cypher, meaning naught, is left : 

And then, lest this primordial cell should hold 
Reason for Deity, they it invert 
And spill the life ; and of the mighty old 
Nothing retain, but simply dregs and dirt — 
Matter and force — whence rose, they dare assert, 
A Godless universe : blind struggle and endeavor 
Securing God-like ends infallibly forever. 

Force is maker. Mind itself is but one of the innumerable results ot 
matter and motion. Intelligence, supreme or inferior, is not first but last : 
is found not at the centre but the circumference. The highest and greatest 
are the products of the lowest and the least. Gravitation given, there is 
no need of any other God. This, of course, is denied. It is denied that 
simple mechanical force ever can become vital, or anything but what it 
is. Evolution applies only to hfe. Any other application is a misnomer. 
Evolution presupposes a germ. What is in the germ it brings out, nothing 
more. What is involved, it evolves. A million cannot be evolved from 
one except in one way, that is by adding a million less one to the one. 
The germ must be enricKed by just so much by new endowments. For to 
unfold what is enfolded, prophesied, projected, provided for, potentially 
present and packed away, is the whole extent and possibility of its function. 
Below the level of life there is evidently no room for the differentiation 
and improvement arising from Natural Selection ; and so the stairs which 



"8 PROEM. 

Since chey deny not to the world we see 
Birth and beginning, and are proud to show 
Their learned aptness in cosmogony^ 
How vulgar dust became, we seek to know, 
Germ of the Infinite, God in embryo. 
Where hidden lay not only heaven and earth, 
But waiting Deity Himself, not come to birth. 

Omniscience is somewhere : we must assume 
Omniscient atom, or omniscient mind — 
A boundless Unit in unbounded room — 
An All in all, or under or behind — 
Or God, or His equivalent, that designed 
After ideals this majestic whole, 
And gave to man a moral and religious soul. 

serve us such an excellent purpose in our darksome descent down to this 
point, suddenly fail us, and the next step plunges us into the abyss. In 
the invariableness of mechanical and chemical laws there is nothing that 
can uplift. There is neither lever nor fulcrum. So it is God or nothing. 

To evolve the Universe, we must first have the egg. But the question 
even then would arise, "Whence the egg?" and, "Why was it not 
hatched sooner?" Should the answer be, "It was hatched a million, 
billion, or a million billion years ago," the question would return, " Why 
not a million biUion years before that? " and so on, forever. If there was 
nothing extrinsic to the egg, no quickener, no incubator, it is impossible 
to conceive why it should be liable to take ort a state of activity at one 
point of the past eternity more than another. Evolutionists all admit a 
beginning; but self-evolution, to be consistent, ought to be without a 
beginning, for that implies an awakening and an awakener, and an awak- 
ener implies a God. It seems a pity, after all the pains taken to get rid of 



PROEM. 9 

Justice there is, administrative Right, 
Somewhere, in something, name it as you may, 
Wielding a sceptre of imperial might, 
Whose awful mandates none may disobey : 

*' You ought, you shall, you must," we hear it say : 
The voice is God's, unless the voice deceive. 

And we in high judicial atoms can believe. 

If Nature does not juggle us, we are ; 
Not only are, but are the thing we seem- 
No docetism of science, making jar 
'Twixt fact and fact, convinces us we dream : 
They sin against their Maker and blaspheme, 
Who trust the lower and distrust the higher. 
And criminating consciousness make God a liar. 

a Divine Cause, that the old exigency should continue. Seed and sowing, 
and a hand to sow, must go before ; then comes evolution. The farmer 
knows this, if not the philosopher. 

Mind is, for we are. Personality belongs to it, for we are persons. To 
say mind depends upon the brain, is to say the Creator has brain. Brain 
is perishable, while God is eternal. The mind we discover in Nature is 
our mind, greater in degree, but the same in kind. Proofs of one great, 
originating, infinite Mind are so ubiquitous, so absolute, and so over^vhelm- 
ing. that denial is little short of blasphemy. It is hke the sin against the Holy 
Ghost. We tolerate in scientists and philosophers what we condemn and 
punish in others. These, it seems, may blaspheme with impunity. What 
can be more atrocious than the advocacy of a doctrine that is universally 
subversive— that strikes at the foundations of the world ? According to it 
the Universe is a huge imposture. All is simular and illusive : we are the 
dupes of tricksy atoms. Our senses, our consciousness, play us false. 



10 PROEM. 

Mind is and rules, and matter is her slave^ 
Resistless might and monarchy of will 
Over wide realms a thousand sceptres wave, 
Making blind force her purposes fulfill — 
Supreme in freedom, knowing good and ill : 
Th' accountable I am, the moral me. 
By no dissolving bands is joined to Deity, 

Right and wrong are words. Our holiest intuitions and infinitudes are but 
the development of molluscous perceptions. God is not, or if He is, not 
separable, not knowable, and consequently not a Being to be loved or 
feared or worshiped. Let these men pray for eyes, it is their greatest need. 

True science is modest. It confesses ignorance. It waits for proof. It 
does not dogmatize a guess. We do not find fault with science, but only 
with those cultivators of it, who indulge in altitudinous assumptions of 
superior wisdom, and are nescient or omniscient, as it best suits them. 
Men imbued with ancient prejudices in favor of morahty and religion may 
well be pardoned for a little backwardness in accepting doctrines destruc- 
tive of both. It does not follow that they are hostile to scientific inquiry, 
because they distinguish between assertion and proof. Darwin's proof is 
certain remarkable variations brought about in domestic pigeons by select- 
ive breeding, on which he founds the assertion that man was not created, 
but evolved from a monkey or a molecule spontaneously, without (to 
use a Lucretian phrase) "the meddling of the gods." But Huxley ad- 
mits that thus far "we have not produced from a common stock two 
breeds which are not more or less fertile with another," and so practically 
the utmost variation that has been reached stops indefinitely short of the 
difference between a horse and an ass, for the offspring of these is infertile. 
Such then is the whole Darwmian " proof," if proof it can be called, and 
its infinitesimal smallness forms so ridiculous a contrast with the bound- 
lessness of the assumption based upon it, as to be comparable only to the 
sportive exaggeration of the famous rhyme of the nursery : 

" Hi diddle diddle, the cat's in the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon," 
when in reality she only jumped over a rather high fence. 

Agassiz, to whom these and all facts of like nature were perfectly familiar, 
found in them no such significance as transmutationists ascribe to them. 
He says: "we find endless discrepancies, endless incongruities, appalling 
anachronisms in the would-be uninterrupted series of progressive events 
as advocated by the supporters of the transmutation dogma. .The assertion 



PROEM. II 

Knowledge is good, divine it is to know — 
Man's earliest instinct is a cry for light. 
O for some guiding certainty below I 
For full of doubt and terror is the night 
Vague threatening shapes the guilty soul affright : 
Reason and conscience sound alarms within, 
And tremble at the possibilities of sin. 

does not bear serious examination." These are the latest utterances of the 
foremost naturalist of his time, after fifty years unintermitted devotion to 
physical studies and investigation ; and yet Mr. Darwin has the effrontery 
to declare that " none but a man content to look like a savage at the phe- 
nomena of nature as disconnected, can any longer believe that man is the 
work of a separate act of creation." And again, "Any hypothesis is 
better than the miserable assumption of a special creation." D'Alembert 
thinks, that Diogenes was the greatest man of antiquity, only that he 
wanted decency. Mr. Darwin's preeminence is clearly subject to the 
same drawback. He further says: "The earliest progenitors of our race 
were no doubt inferior in intellect, and probably in social disposition to 
the lowest existing savages,"— that is to say, were half beast, half devil. 
This is a specimen of that " Gospel of Brutality " which it is the office uf 
the "mild light of science" to introduce as a substitute for the Gospel 
"which brings life and immortality to light." 

If these men of the microscope, keen in their quest of the small, and 
who make Nothing their quarry, instead of atheistic assumptions could 
be induced, just tentatively and for the once, to take up the God of the 
Bible, which also is the God of human hearts, merely as a scientific hy- 
pothesis, and work from that, not only downwards in the direction of man's 
origin, but upwards in the direction of his aspirations and his hopes, 
they would find, not only that it meets the exigencies of the physical half 
of his nature, but the spiritual and grander half likewise, which the atheistic 
hypothesis utterly ignores. Will not the clay patronize the Potter that far ? 

Science, or that which arrogates her title, ends in a confession of ignor- 
ance. Out of her own mouth is she judged. Her Arctic voyage of discov- 
ery is simply a record of di'=:astrous shipwreck and hopeless imprisonment 
in interminable continents of ice, with the North Pole unreached. We 
pity the unfortunate survivors. They return not as they went. The frost 
has entered the blood and affected the brain. " Poor Tom's a-cold." 
They go about mumbling in an imbecile way something respecting " the 



12 PROEM. 

Divine Evangel, from four trumpets blown, 
Filled with melodious and immortal breath, 
To all the world forgiveness making known. 
And free salvation from eternal death ! 
O, hearken the glad news it witnesseth, 
Ye sons of men, beware how you despise 
The voice of your Redeemer speaking from the skies. 

Unknowable," as indicative, however, not ot humility and a willingness 
to learn, but a vertiginous vanity and a boundless self conceit. There 
may be, they say, a First Cause, but they doubt it. If there is a sun in 
the heavens they do not know it. Science, if this be science, is a fool- 
serviceable for low mechanical utihties, but worthless for anything higher, 
nay, worse than worthless, a pestilent subverter and destroyer of all good, 
which ought to be banished from our schools and our firesides as fatal to 
virtue and the best interests of mankind. Man is a being agitated with 
unutterable hopes and fears. Heaven is high and hell is deep. It is 
enough that science can tell him nothing of what he most wishes to know- 
having heard nothing, no voice speaking out of the darkness, out of the 
eternal silence— without shrieking in his ear her gratuitous ignorances and 
conjectures of despair. " Where is the wise ? Where is the disputer of 
this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? " 
Physicists are great sticklers for freedom ; but we shrewdly suspect that 
no form of tyranny would be so insufferable as that which would tie them 
down to fact, and oblige them to bring proof for all assertions. They are 
so mercurial a race that they would find the breeding of pigeons a dull 
business, we fear, unless they were permitted to enliven it with a Terpsi- 
chorean reel of atoms to the tune of a musical world-making. They de- 
nounce bigotry, but there is no class more narrow and intolerant than 
themselves. They have an easy creduHty which would have sufficed to 
make them first rate fanatics had they occupied themselves with religion 
instead of science. Surely " the wise are caught in their own craftiness." 
In view of such folly one is tem.pted to extol with Pope, 
" Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven, 
And though no science fairly worth the seven." 
And pray with Quarles, 

" Sweet Phosphor, hring the day, whose conquering ray 
May chase these fogs: Sweet Phosphor bring the day ! 



The Evangel. 



I 



I. 

THE LOGOS 



N the beginning was the Unbegun- 



Articulate Eternity, Ahnighty Word, 
Melodious Utterance of the Three in One, 
That, in the solitudes of Godhead heard. 
Makes there society. In whom concurred 
All attributes, co-ordinate, agreeing. 
One of the blessed Triad of Monadic Beine. 



't5' 



The Word with God, the self-communing Voice, 
Out of Eternity, creating, spake : 
"To crown Our finished work with creature choice, 



John i : I. In the beginning was was God. 2Xhe same was in the 
the Word (the Logos), and the beginning with God. [Gen. i : 26. 
Word was with God, and the Word And God said, Let us make man in 



14 THE EVANGEL. 

Let US make man, in Our own image make, 
After Our likeness ; and Myself will take, 
In proper time, the likeness of the human. 
The faded God-like to restore in man and woman." 

The Word was God, projection of His thought. 
His will, His wisdom, majesty and might ; 
Whose spoken fiat into being brought 
Unnumbered firmaments and worlds of light : 
Or throned in Heaven's illimitable height. 
Or immanent in man, a man below. 
The only God revealed, the only God we know. 

In Him was life, original, underived — 
Life manifold, possessed by Him alone — 
A life of which ev'n brutes are not deprived ; 
A higher life, which is to them unknown. 
The life of man, peculiar and his own. 
Instinct with light and capable of day. 
Reason's bright beam and Faith's superior ray. 



our image, after our likeness.] ^All Light shineth in darkness, and the 

things were made by Him, and with- darkness comprehended it not. . . 

out Him was not any thing made that ^That was the true Light which 

was made. ^ In Him was hfe, and the hghteth every man that cometh into 

life was the Hght of men. s And the the world, i" He was in the world 



THELOGOS. 15 

The heavenly Light in thickest darkness shines : 
The mind opaque with prejudice and sin 
Admits it not: bUnd pride the soul confines, 
And dungeon doors of unbelief shut in. 
To His own world, own people and own kin 
He came in love, and Him His own disowned: 
But made them that believe as sons to sit enthroned. 

The sons of God, not by ancestral boast 
Of blood or lineage or chance of birth, 
But by begetting of the Holy Ghost, 
Derived from all the families of earth ; 
In recognition of the immortal worth 
Of Him, who was Heaven's only Son and Heir, 
But chose that other sons His heritage should share. 

The Word made flesh, with human organs, spake 
Immortal wisdom : man in look and mien : 
Did here a temple of His body make. 
And tabernacle among us : here was seen. 

and the world was made by Him, and that beheve on His name : ^^ Which 

the world knew Him not. ^ He came were born, not of blood, nor of the 

unto His own and His own received will of the flesh, nor of the will of 

Him not. 12 But as many as received man, but of God. ^■♦And the Word 

Him to them gave He power to be- was made flesh, and dwelt (taberna- 

come the sons of God, even to them cled) among us (and we beheld His 



l6 THE EVANGEL, 

That light, which dwelt the cherubim between, 

Less glorious, than the glimpses and beholdings 

Of those divine revealings, flashings and unfoldings — 

Transfiguration pomps ; theophanies 
Of moral grandeur ; miracles of might ; 
Amazing proofs of goodness crowning these, 
Divulging Godhead to the heart and sight. 
The law by Moses came with typic rite ; 
But grace and truth by Jesus Christ were brought, 
With full absolving power and real cleansing fraught. 

No man hath seen God's countenance and face; 
No eye could bear the brightness of that sun : 
Faint partial showings in His works we trace — 
Maker of monsters, the Mysterious One, 
Author of death, this much from Nature 's won — 
But His exceeding love remained concealed, 
'Till His embosomed Son declared Him and revealed. 



glory, the glory as of the only be- God at anytime; the only begotten 

gotten of the Father), full of grace Son, which is in the bosom of the 

and truth. . . i^And of His fulness Father, He hath declared Him. . . 

have all we received, and grace for [i John i : i. That which was from 

grace, i' For the law was given by the beginning, which we have heard, 

Moses, but grace and truth came by which we have seen with our eyes, 

Jesus Christ. isj^Tq ^^^^ |-,j^f|^ ^^^j^ which we have looked upon, which- 



THE LOGOS. 17 

O Love divine, Compassion infinite, 
Impersonate in Him, whom we have heard, 
Seen with our eyes, have looked on with blest sight, 
Have handled with our hands, the Living Word! 
Not a phantasma, as by some averred, 
But clear reality beyond all strife, 
That wondrous manifestation of the Eternal Life. 

Human and personal, it brought Him near — 
Abolished distance. O sweet neighborhood ! 
Permitted fellowship divinely dear. 
What blest communications of all good, 
Flowing and flowing in continual flood 
From His exhaustiess fullness — grace for grace, 
To meet the utmost need of every sinner's case ! 



Our God is Light — in Him no darkness is — 
Loathing antipathies refuse embrace — 
Who walks in darkness, he is none of His ; 
Who walks in light has fellowship of grace ; 



our hands have handled of the Word the Father and with His Son Jesus 
of Life. . . 2 That which we have Christ. . . '" This then is the mes- 
seen and heard declare we unto you, sage whch we have heard of Him, 
that ye also may have fellowship with and declare unto you, that God is 
us : and truly our fellowship is with light, and in Him is no darkness at 

2 



l8 THE EVANGEL. 

Receives the irradiations of that face, 
Of which the glory of a single ray, 
The dawn and day-spring is of an eternal day. 

Our God is Love, and what will love not do, 
When love is infinite and power as well ? 
The Lord of love, on wings of mercy flew 
Adown from highest heaven to deepest hell, 
From that deep ruin into which he fell 
To rescue man, and, O amazing grace. 
To raise the vile apostate to a heavenly place. 

all. I'lf we say that we have fellow- John iii : 16. For God so loved the 

ship with Him and walk in darkness, world, that He gave His only be- 

we lie, and do not the truth gotten Son, that whosover believeth 

I John iv : 16. God is love ; and in Him should not perish, but 

he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in have everlasting life. 
God and God in him. 



NOTE. 

The first Christians, the unlearned particularly, implicitly received and 
worshiped Christ as God. Theirs was the intuitive view, the faith of 
children. But many of the early Christians, Justin Martyr and others, 
were Platonists before they were Christians. Plato lived four hundred 
years before Christ. Philo, an Alexandrian Jew, contemporary with the 
apostles, set the example of tracing out pagan analogies — seeking the 
germs of the Greek philosophy in the Jewish Scriptures, and finding Plato 
in Moses. The easy adaptation of the theosophic speculations of the one 
concerning the Logos or Divine Reason, to the inspired disclosures of the 
other concerning Jehovah and the Word of Jehovah ; with the personifi- 



T H E L O G O S . 19 

cation of Wisdom met witli in Proverbs viii. and elsewhere, would favor 
minglings leading to corruptions of the Divine testimony, and furnish 
occasion to the last of the Evangelists, in this sublime Prologue to his 
Gospel, to assert the true doctrine of the Logos, separated from that which 
was false, introduced by the earher and later Platonizers and Gnostics. 

In the sects that early sprung up it is easy to trace the corrupting influ- 
ence of Judaism and heathen philosophy. While the Ebionites, half Jews, 
denied, like our modern Unitarians, the divinity of Christ ; the Gnostics, 
half heathen, denied in various ways His humanity. One class of Gnos- 
tics, the Marcionites in particular, affirming that while he appeared in 
fashion as a man. He only seemed to be a man, on which account they 
were called Docetce (from donicj, to appear, to seem to be). Docetism 
supposed a real, though phantasmal non-hyhc Christ, hyle or matter being 
inherently corrupt and sinful, therefore not predicable of Him. Gnosti- 
cism flourished most during the first and second centuries, giving place to 
Ma?ncheis7n, a kindred heresy, in the third. Both were founded on the 
pagan dualistic view of the world. Evil arises from matter. As God is 
tke source of good only. Gnosticism conceived the world, because imper- 
fect, not to be His work, but the work of the Demiurge, one of the -^ons, 
or representatives of the Eternal — the -(Eons being emanations and em- 
bodiments of Divine Attributes, of which there is a large number, some 
making the sum of superior ^ons 365. Christ, one of the highest of 
these ^ons or Emanations, came down from the spirit world to redeem. 
The Marcionites divided the one Christ into two Christs, a heavenly and 
earthly Christ, the latter serving merely as the organ of the former, and 
the two becoming first united at His baptism in the Jordan, in consequence 
of which they attached great importance to that rite. It was this boasted 
Gnosis in its beginnings ; the subtle, pretentious mock wisdom of such 
self-conceited, self-styled Gnostics (Knowers) that Paul (i Tim. vi: 20, and 
z Tim. ii : 17, 18) characterizes as " profane and vain babblings, and oppo- 
sitions oi sciejice (gnosis) falsely so called," overthrowing the faith of some, 
saying the resurrection is past already. It is easy to see how a denial of 
Christ's humanity should involve a denial of the resurrection likewise. 
So, too, in I John i : i, and iv : 2, 3, there is a direct and positive contra- 
diction to the docetic figment of a Christ not come in the flesh, which is 
antichrist. 

Origen (b. 185, d. 254) asserted the distinct personality of the Son, in 
opposition to the Monarchians or Unitarians ; also, that He was Son by 
eternal not simply antemundane generation, begotten before creation in 
order to create ; God but not the God ; an emanation from the will of the 
Father, and subordinate to Him, not merely as to mode of subsistence, 
but as to nature. 



20 T H E E V A N G E L . 

Sabellius (a.d. 250) taught that the Monad (the One Absolute Being) 
self-evolved became the Triad — the Father, the Logos and the Holy Ghost 
— these being designations of the three different phases (rpca Trpoawrza, here 
used not in the secondary sense oi persons, but the primary one oi faces or 
aspects), under which the Divine Essence manifests itself to the world. 
God silent is inactive, but speaking is active. The Logos is the Godhead 
breaking silence, whence creation. The name, Son of God, belongs to 
Christ ; not to the Logos as Logos, but to the Logos united with human- 
ity, the God-man (Gr. Theanthropos), the hypostatized, /. e., impersonated, 
incarnated Logos. The manifestation of God in Christ and the Holy 
Spirit are only temporary. The sun in the end will reabsorb its ray, and 
the Triad be merged again in the Monad, in accordance with i Cor. xv : 
28. Sabellianism is open to the objection that it does away with alldistinc- 
don except what is modal and titular, making the Trinity to consist in a 
Trinity of offices or relations, rather than of hypostases or persons, mean- 
ing by these terms, realities of subsistence as opposed to modes of mani- 
festation, or what is merely phenomenal — the orthodox doctrine being, in 
scholastic phrase : Una substantia in tribtis subsistentiis — one substance in 
three subsistences, or selfs. Praxeas (a.d. 200) and Noetus (a.d. 230) 
relying on such texts as, "I and my Father are one ; " " He that hath seen 
me hath seen the Father," had previously maintained that the Father was 
the same as the Son, and suffered on the Cross, whence the name, Patri- 
passianism (from pater, father, and passio, passion). Those holding to a 
modal Trinity were called indifferently Monarchians, Patripassians, or 
Unitarians. 

Arius, writing half a century later (A.D. 315), at first, by way of protest 
against Sabellianism — which he thought was a virtual denial of the triper- 
sonality of God — contended that the Son existed before any creature, but 
not from eternity, as held by Origen and the orthodox ; was Maker of 
worlds ; equal to the Father in power, but not the same, only similar in 
essence, the first being the orthodox behef, whence the terms ho7noousion 
{ofioi;-, the same, and ovc'ta, essence or nature) and homoiousioji 
{byLQiog, like, and ovaia, essence), terms which played so important a part 
in the disputes and logomachies of the times of Constantine, and long 
afterward. His followers soon divided into two parties, viz. : the Strict 
Arians, or Heterousiaiis (from 'krtqo'::, another or different, and oiiata, es- 
sence), and the semi-Arians ox Homoiousians, the first holding that the Son's 
nature was dissimilar, and the latter that it was similar to the Father's, 
though not consubstantial. Athanasius distinguished himself as the stren- 
uous opposer of Arianism in all its forms ; and the same was condemned 
by the Council of Nice (a.d. 325). 

ApoUinaris (A.D. 350), seeking for better ground to oppose Arianism 



TliELOGOS. 21 

than the orthodox one, denied the humanity of Christ, at least the entire- 
ness of it. Adopting the Platonic distinction (trichotomy) between the 
body (cijua), the animal soul {'ipvx'j), and rational spirit or mind {jrvEVfia 
or voi'f), he claimed that Christ had a true body, but that the Logos sup- 
plied the place of the human intelligence or nous. This old ApoUinariaii 
doctrine is substantially the same as that set forth by Henry Ward Beecher 
in his late work. The Life of Christ. Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, 
who lived in the first half of the fifth century, in opposing the Apollinarian 
doctrine of a mixed nature, was led to assert strongly the distinction be- 
tween Christ as the Son of God, and Christ as the Son of Man ; denying 
that the Virgin Mary could be called Qzqtokoi;, " Mother of God,'" but only 
XQCGTOTOKO', " Mother of Christ." He was understood as affirming the 
existence of tzao distinct persons in Christ as well as two distinct natures ; 
and that the immanence or residence of the Divine Logos in the man 
Christ Jesus was distinguished from the divine indwelling in others by 
plenitude rather than kind. Nestorianism spread widely throughout the 
East, and continues to the present. Eutyches (b. 378, d. 454) was head of 
the party opposed to Nestorius. He maintained that the human in Christ 
was changed into the divine ; whence there resulted oneness of nature (Mon- 
ophysitism, from iibvog, single, and ^vfTic. nature) as well as oneness of 
person. A later and logical offshoot of Eutychianism was the doctrine of 
oneness of will (Monothelitism, from fxovoi;', single ODm to will), instead 
of two wills, human and divine. The Council of Chalcedon (held A.D. 
451), condemned the teachings of both Nestorius and Eutyches, and de- 
clared the true doctrine to be — One divine person in two natures, not 7nixed 
nor confoujidcd, although intimately united, forming what is called THE 
HYPOSTATICAL UNION. 

The Reformed Churches, in making up their Confessions of Faith, 
accepted this Christological statement as the Scriptural one, and distinctly 
rejected and condemned Arianism, Ebionism, Marcionism (Docetic Gnos- 
ticism), Sabellianism, ApoUinarianism, Nestorianism, Eutychianism and 
Monothelitism or Monophysidsm as well as the Lutheran doctrine of the 
ubiquity of Christ's body. Socinus, an Italian, of a noble family (b. 1539, 
d. 1604), held that Christ was a man, but distinguished from all other 
men : i. By His miraculous conception ; 2. by His sinlessness ; 3. By a 
special baptism of the Holy Ghost ; 4. By His being taken up into Heaven 
before entering upon His ministry, based on John iii : 3, and John vi : 62 ; 
5. By His exaltation after His resurrection to the Viceroyalty of the whole 
universe ; 6. By a title thus derived to be called God and worshiped ; 
7. By His being the Author of salvation to men, operating not only over 
them and for them, but also within them. The so-called Socinians of 
Great Britain and America hold other views, and oujrht to be classed 



22 THE EVANGEL. 

rather with the Humanitarians, who, discarding the supernatural alto- 
gether, rate Christ as a great Teacher only ; but this low estimate of Him, 
it is just to say, is not accepted by all Unitarians, among whom there is a 
wide diversity of sentiment, some speaking of Christ in terms hardly dis- 
tinguishable from genuine orthodoxy. The doctrine of the f re-existence of 
Christ's htimanity has been held in different forms. Swedenborg (b. 1698, 
d. 1772) called God " the eternal God-man." God, he taught, is not only 
essence but form, and that form is human. He admitted a Trinity of 
principles but not of persons. Like the Patripassians or ancient Unita- 
rians, Christ he held was Jehovah ; also that He was God and man from 
eternity ; that He assumed a material body, which grew, suffered and 
died, and was gradually refined and glorified until lost in that which is 
spiritual and eternal. Man, according to him, has likewise a two-fold 
body, but in his case the material is left forever in the grave. Dr. Isaac 
Watts, it is known, believed in the pre-existence of the human soul of 
Christ, created before any other creatures in personal union with the Eter- 
nal Logos, the second person of the Trinity. In 1746, he published three 
discourses on " The Glory of Christ as God-man," setting forth these 
views. He refers to several distinguished writers and theologians. Dr. 
Henry More, Dr. Thomas Burnet and others as agreeing with him. 

It is generally thought — the belief not being confined by any means to 
the small number who hold to Christ's pre-existent manhood — that the 
AjTgelophanies and Theophatiies, or Appearances of God in human form, 
mentioned in the Old Testament under the names of Jehovah and the 
Angel of Jehovah (see Gen. xviii : 2, 22 ; xxxii : 24, 30; Josh, v : 13, 15, 
16) relate to the Logos — the sole Revealer of the hidden God under all 
Dispensations. These manifestations were, besides being transient, pro- 
bably docetic, mere visionary human semblance, prophetic of the Incar- 
nation, when " the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Then 
the transient became fixed ; and so far from Christ's person being a docetic 
manifestation, a mere Gnostic seeming — even in the thirteen theophanies 
recorded after His resurrection — it was authenticated as an unspectral 
reality — not spirit, but " flesh and bones." 

As Theology is always more or less penetrated by the spirit of the reign- 
ing Philosophy, recent Christological speculations in Germany owe their 
distinctive character undoubtedly to current Transcendental and Pantheistic 
theories — "the all-one doctrine" of Spinoza. There are two classes 
of theologians, distinguishable into Pantheistical and Theistical. Both 
agree in affirming the otteness of God and man ; but while one means 
thereby identity, the other intends nothing more than that "■ 7iatura humana 
capax est natures divince.'" According to the first, man w God ; and the 
incarnation of God is from eternity. According to the latter, man may 



T H E L O G O S . 23 

become God, Christ, these hold, has but one nature ; born feeble and 
ignorant, he came gradually into the possession of divine attributes ; and 
since His ascension and session at the right hand of God, He is still a man, 
but an infinite man — the glorified Son having been received into the trini- 
tarian life of the Deity. According to Dorner there was a human soul to 
begin with, to which the Eternal Logos communicated, from time to time. 
His divinity. Another view is, that the Eternal Logos, by a process of 
depotentiation, self-limitation, self-divesture, or emptying of Himself, be- 
came man. Reduced to the limitations of manhood, He received from the 
Father such communications of supernatural power as he needed. This 
theory agrees with the Apollinarian doctrine, in that it makes the Logos 
the rational element in Christ ; but differs in supposing the Logos shorn 
of His attributes in the outset. It affirms with Eutychianism oneness of 
nature, but unlike that, does not admit two natures before the union. It 
is Apollinarianism in this, its modern and modified form, that Mr. Beecher 
would seem to favor ; but it is questionable whether it does not make more 
difficulties than it removes. It cuts the knot instead of untying it. Sub- 
traction and addition are not predicable of the Infinite. There can be 
no mutilation of Divinity. Omnipotent weakness and omniscient igno- 
rance are a contradiction in terms. God stripped of His attributes were no 
longer God. So too a being without a human soul is not a man. Christ, 
therefore, according to this view, was not a man but a docetic illusive sem- 
blance. Such are some of the objections. 

Schleiermacher, in his "Dogmatics" {Der Christliche Glaiibe), first 
published in 1821, sought to construct a system of Christian theology 
out of the facts of Christian experience. The historic Christ was made 
second to the Christ in his own bosom. He spoke of Christ as the Urblld, 
the Archetypal or Ideal Man : miraculously produced, and the source of 
life to others by rousing the God-dormant consciousness in men : divine, 
because man is the 7nodus existendl of God on the earth : sinless and free 
from error ; not simply potest nan peccare but noti potest peccare — God, 
because a perfect man. The creation of man, imperfect in Adam, was 
completed in Christ, who assumed not a human body and soul, but generic 
humanity, that this might be raised to the power of divinity not in Him 
only, but also in the church. Generic humanity joined to a special organ- 
ization makes the individual. Christ is the whole of humanity ; all is 
summed up in Him, the Universal Man. Neander and Olhausen were 
numbered among his disciples, but differed widely in many respects, going 
much farther in the direction of orthodoxy. The writers of the Mercers- 
burg school in this country, Dr. Nevin and others, advocate similar views. 
With Schleiermacher, God in Himself is the Father, God in Christ is the 
Son, God in the Church is the Spirit, by^vhich he means, however, no 



24 THEEVANGEL. 

more than the common hfe of the church. Other German theologians 
find philosophical reasons for the Trinity in the fact, that consciousness in 
God makes necessary a distinction of persons, that is to say, an objective 
Ego or Thou, as well as a subjective Ego. 

" Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? " To this question 
of our Lord we have had here in the Creeds, Confessions and Christo- 
logies, variant and warring of earlier and later times, the manifold answer. 
" But whom do ye, my disciples, say that I am ? " The appeal is from 
the wise to the simple. In the hush of loud theologies let experience 
speak. First of all then, and above all, Christ is to the believer the reve- 
lation of a need. He is certified as divine, inasmuch as a Saviour less 
than divine were no Saviour at all, because unequal to the felt necessity of 
a help miraculous and infinite : for, in justifying man, God must justify 
Himself. What miracle so stupendous as the Divine inconsistency of a 
judicial reversal of a just sentence ! Who reconciles warring attributes and 
self-contradictions of Godhead ; terminates the law without repealing it ; 
magnifies it when broken by pardon in lieuof penalty ; condemns the sin and 
saves the sinner ; does more than create— mirrors, one might say, the trans- 
cendent effulgence of an impossible Omnipotence. This is the work 
ascribed to Christ throughout the New Testament. His divinity is not 
a matter of texts, but texture. It forms the very warp and woof of the 
whole fabric. That He does not condescend to the vulgar egotism of a 
perpetual self-assertion, befits Him ; but every where and always He is 
seen to be God in action — exercising divine prerogatives ; stilling tempests 
and forgiving sins ; healing the sick and raising the dead— all with the 
quiet ease and composed majesty of One unconscious of doing any thing 
extraordinary : and, finally, laying down His life and taking it again, He 
ascends on high to resume the glory which He had with the Father before 
the world was. 

One is tempted to wonder at the presumption of men who, profoundly 
ignorant of their own nature, dare to dogmatize concerning God's ; and 
annex an Athanasian Quicimgue vult (Whoever would be saved) to each 
formulated affirmation and finding contained in their creed. A doctrine 
and the definition of a doctrine are very different things. It is quite pos- 
sible, therefore, to believe in the doctrine and not the definition. Any 
definition of an infinite subject must of necessity be incomplete. It can 
only include a part and not the whole. The moment we begin to define 
Godhead our difficulties begin. What is hard to the defining intellect is 
easy to faith. 

We are liable, doubtless, to do great injustice to another's view of a 
many-sided truth, by not seeing what he sees at his angle of vision. Thus 
a Schleiermacher's concept^n of Christ as " a finished man," therefore 



THE LOGOS. 25 



God, understood in the Hegelian sense, which makes man the highest 
existence-form of God, may be, and very properly too, a "disgusting 
horror" to a Neander : but it is difficult not to believe that Schleiermacher 
himself, who delighted in hymns of praise and gratitude to our Redeemer, 
was a Christian. Tlius six'aks Ur. lludge the great champion of orthodoxy. 
We are saved by Faith rather than a Creed : because Faith is a divine 
gift ; a great, vital fact of human experience, having its birth and begin- 
ning in the profoundest depths of the renewed heart: whereas a Creed is 
more an affair of the intellect ; an invented sym.bol or mould of doctrine, 
into which are cast — as the name " Symbol," the synonym of Creed, 
implies — the gathered result of the severe questionings of the controversial 
crucible, the divine gold, as it passes out of the fire, still debased, alas ! 
with the inevitable alloy of human passion and speculation. The differ- 
ence between truth in the intellect and in the heart is that of plants stored 
in a hortus siccus, and the same, blooming and breathing fragrance in the 
growing Garden of the Lord. 

The lesson to be deduced from this review is one of charity. " Judge 
not lest ye be judged." Not but that a right creed is supremely important. 
All error is quicksand, and dangerous to build upon. But humihty is of 
the ground and takes hold of the rock. Better were it if, discarding pride, 
men could be content to leave the mysteries of the Godhead where Reve- 
lation leaves them : to stop where it stops. God is a unit, but a unit 
understood by none. The Trinity is a dear and divine fact, not explained 
because unexplainable. It belongs not to arithmetic. Arithmetic adds 
and subtracts, but the Infinite admits of neither subtraction nor addition. 
It is enough to know that " God is in Christ, reconciling the world to 
Himself, not imputing to men their trespasses ; " and that this paradox of 
grace has its deep origin in the Triune paradox of a God, at once sole and 
social, happy from all eternity in the ineffable endearments and commun- 
ings of a plural and loving Oneness — God in God, with God, from God — 
sweetly distinguished as the Father, the Son, and the Proceeding Spirit. 
Who would exchange the exhilarations of belief in such a proclaimed 
Evangel, for the dreary negations of doubt, and the resultant horror of 
atheistic despair ! 



II. 

THE LINEAGE. 

FROM Adam unto Christ, lo ! sire to son 
Transmits that hfe which was by God begun. 
All latent possibilities of man, 
Which in the veins of the first father ran, 
Appear in his descendants. Adam lives 
Aye in the blood, and circulates and gives 
Perpetual proof of presence. First, in Cain 
Breaks forth the madness of the eaten bane. 
Still, sin is voluntary ; otherwise, 
Man were not guilty, and the frowning skies 
Were angry without cause. Though Adam ate- 
From no malignant tyranny of fate. 
But with free hands Cain blood fraternal spilt— 
Spontaneous and original his guilt. 
For Abel's tainted blood did not compel 
To deeds of murder : rather he did well 
And was accepted. Enoch walked with God : 



T H E L I N E A G E 27 

And Noah likewise, just and perfect, trod 

The uncorrupted way, and favor found, 

Saved with his house when all the world was drowned. 

Leaving the shores of far Eternity, 
O'er Time's tempestuous and troubled sea 
The shining feet of Promise, lo ! are seen 
Walking the waves in majesty serene, 
With step unfaltering, firm, however tost, 
Divinely safe when threatened to be lost. 
Down through the ages His descent we trace, 
The future Saviour of the human race. 
Through Seth to Abram in the line of Shem ; 
Judah and Tamar ; Pharez, born of them, 

Matt, i : i. The Book of the Gen- Aram ; ^and Aram begat Amina- 

eration [or Genealogy] of JESUS dab; and Aminadab begat Naason ; 

CHRIST, the Son of David, the and Naason begat Salmon; ^and 

Son of Abraham : Salmon begat Booz of Rachab \the 

2 Abraham begat Isaac; and harlot of Jericho, a Canaanltish 

Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat wo7naTi\\ and Booz begat Obed of 

Judas and his brethren ; s and Judas Ruth \a Moabite5s\ ; and Obed be- 

begat Ph ares and Zarah \twms\ of gat Jesse ; ^ and Jesse begat David* 

Thamar \incestuously , she being his the King. 

daughter-in-law'] ; and Phares begat Luke iii : 34. Abraham the son 

* At David the two streams of descent divide, one passing through 
Solomon, and the other through Nathan ; one explanation of the diver- 
gence being, that the first, as given by Matthew, relates to Joseph ; and 
the other, as given by Luke, to Mary properly, and to Joseph only in a 
representative sense. But we prefer that given p. 56, which makes Mat- 
thew's a legal begetting, and Luke's a natural. [Numb, xxvii : 8-11.] 



28 



FHE EVANGEL. 



Incestuous issue ; Boaz, Salmon's son 
By Rahab, called a harlot ; — on and on, 
The thread of generation passing through 
Cursed Canaanite, and Moabite and Jew — 
A nature representative and broad, 
Son of the sons of Adam, Son of God — 
Enclosing in the firmamental span 
Of His humanity the world of man. 



of Thara, which was the son of Na- 
chor, ^^^which was the son of Saruch, 
which was the son of Ragau, which 
was the son of Phalec, which was 
the son of Heber, which was the son 
of Sala, "G-vvhich was the son of Cai- 
nan, which was the son of Arphaxad, 
which was the son of Sem (Shem), 
which was the son of Noe, which 



was the son of Lamech, s'which was 
the son of Mathusala, which was the 
son of Enoch, which was the son of 
Jared, which was the son of Cainan, 
38 which was the son of Enos, which 
was tlie son of Seth, which was the 
son of Adam, which was the son of 
God. 



III. 

THE ANNUNCIATION. 

WHEN cruel Herod," of the hated race 
Of Esau, long had reigned by Roman grace 
King of Judea, thus it came to pass : 
A priest named Zacharias (of the class 
Abijah ; wife of Aaron's line, her name 
Elizabeth ; both righteous, without blame, 

Luke i : 5. There was in the days into which the priests were divided 

of Herod, the king of Judea, a cer- binder David, i Chron. xxiv : 10], 

tain priest named Zacharias, of the and his wife was of the daughters 

course Abia {being the eighth of of Aaron, and her name was Ehsa- 

the twenty-four courses or classes beth. ^And they were both right- 

* Herod the Great (so called) was the second son of Antipater, a 
politic Idumean appointed to the procuratorship of Judea by Julius Caesar 
(B.C. 47). Himself, though only fifteen years old at the time, was made 
governor of Galilee. Later, Marc Antony made him and his eldest bro- 
ther tetrarchs of Judea. Next year— driven out by the Parthians, who 
supported the claims of Antigonus, the representative of the Asmonean 
(Maccabean) dynasty, which had ruled for one hundred years— he fled to 
Rome, where he was well received by Antony and Octavius ; and was ap- 
pointed (b. C. 40) by the Senate king of Judea, to the exclusion of the 
Asmonean hne. In the course of three years, by the help of the Romans, 
he took Jerusalem (b. c. 37) and Antigonus was put to death. The pos- 
session of the kingdom was confirmed to him by Octavius, now Emperor, 
(B.C. 31) with additions, which made it include, besides Judea proper, 



30 T II E E V A N G E L . 

Walking in God's commandments ; both now old 

And childless ; neither hoping to behold 

An answer to a prayer, less often prayed 

As too presumptuous, beyond time delayed). 

His week fulfilling in his class's turn, 

It fell to him by lot incense to burn 

Within the Sanctuary of the Lord, 



eous before God, walking in all the of fifty. Num. viii : 25.] s And it 
commandments and ordinances of came to pass, that while he execu- 
the Lord blameless. 'And they had ted the priest's office before God 
no child, because that Elisabeth was in the order of his course, ^ Accord- 
barren, and they were both well ing to the custom of the priest's 
stricken in years \that is, relatively, office his lot was to burn incense 
Priests ceased to serve after the age (Ex. xxx : 7, 8) when he went into 

Samaria and Galilee, with Perea and Gaulonitis east of the Jordan, com- 
prising all the land originally divided among the twelve tribes, together 
with Idumea in the south. 

Idumea is the Greek form of Edom (Red), the name given to Esau who 
sold his birth-right for a mess of 7r^ pottage (Gen. xxv : 30). Long ene- 
mies, the Idumeans v/ere conquered and brought over to Judaism by Hyr- 
CANUS L, son of Simon, the youngest of the Maccabean brothers (b.c. 130) ; 
so that the Herods while aliens by race were Jews in faith. Herod Anti- 
pas, being a Jew and so bound by the law, made it consistent and fitting 
for John to say to him (Matth. xiv : 3, 4), " It is not lawful for thee to have 
thy brother Philip's wife ;" and for Paul to say to Herod Agrippa (Acts 
xxvi : 27), " Believest thou the prophets ? I know that thou believest ; " 
language which, if addressed to any heathen ruler of the time, such as 
Pilate or Festus, would have been wholly out of place. 

To the first Herod, however, all religions would seem to have been 
alike. Though nominally a Jew, he was as ready to sacrifice to Jupiter as 
to God. While at vast expense he rebuilt the Temple at Jerusalem, and 
in like manner the Temple at Samaria, he scrupled not at the same time 
to make provision in his new maritime city of Caesarea for heathen wor- 
ship, and to introduce heathen games within the walls of Jerusalem. 



THE ANNUNCIATION. 3 1 

While the whole multitude outside adored. 
Seeing an Angel, on the altar's right 
Standing, he felt disturbance and affright. 

" Fear not," the Angel said, " I bring thee word, 
O Zacharias! that thy prayer is heard: 
Thy wife Elizabeth shall bear a son, 
'Jehovah-given,' thou shalt call him JOHN. 

the temple {vaov) of the Lord * right side of the altar of incense, 

loAnd the whole multitude were pray- 12 And when Zacharias saw him, he 

in g without at the time of incense. was troubled, and fear fell upon him. 

n And there appeared unto him an " But the angel said unto him, Fear 

angel of the Lord standing on the not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is 



Everything was subordinated to his ambition. He was adroit and able, 
magnificent in his tastes, but unscrupulous and cruel. He has been 
likened to Henry VHI. of England, both in his good and bad qualities. 
Like him he had many wives, ten in all. His second wife (a grand- 
daughter of Hyrcanus II., slain by him (B.C. 31) to get rid of a rival to the 
throne) was the proud and beautiful Marimnne, whom in a fit of jealous 
rage he likewise pat to death. By her he had two sons, Aristobulus and 
Alexander. These he caused to be strangled (b. c. 6), moved by fear 
lest, recommended by their graces of person, popular manners, and the 
Asmonean blood which flowed in their veins, they should find means to 
avenge their murdered mother and supplant him in the kingdom. Only 
five days before his death he accomplished the execution of his favored 
son Antipater, by his first wife Doris, previously designated by him as 



* The vaoz is the Temple itself distinct from the courts — from va/w, 
to inhabit — God's proper Habitation, consisting of the Holy Place and 
the Holy of Holies. The Altar of Incense stood in the Holy Place, 
lepov applies to the whole, including the outer courts, porches, porticoes 
and other buildings. Renan, by not attending to this distinction between 
the two words, ignorantly imputes to Luke " a wrong idea of the Temple." 



32 THE EVANGEL. 

Many besides thyself in all the earth 

Shall be made glad by reason of his birth. 

For, great before the Lord, his pure renown 

To latest generations shall go down. 

A Nazarite, to self-denial bred 

God's consecration resting on his head 

He shall be separate, and make no use 

Of any species of fermented juice, * 

Wine or strong drink ; but be from birth instead 

Filled with the Holy Ghost in heart and head.* 

heard ; and thy wife shall bear thee Jehovah."] "And thou shalt have 

a son, and thou shalt call his name joy and gladness ; and many shall 

John. [Heb. Johanan, shortened rejoice at his birth, ^spor he shall 

from'^€cvo\i2iVi2LXv, answering to TXiO.o- be great in the sight of the Lord, 

o^oxQ in Greek, meaning " Given of and shall drink neither wine nor 

his successor, who, tired of waiting for his death, had conspired against 
his life. It was in view of these unnatural crimes, that Augustus, in whose 
favor he would nevertheless seem to have stood high, is said to have 
uttered that famous sarcasm : Melius est Heivdis forc7im esse quam filium : 
" It is better to be Herod's hog than his son" — his religion forbidding 
him to slaughter the former. 

It was while the doom of his son awaited the confirmation of the Em- 
peror that he was seized with a most painful and loathsome disease, that 
resulted in his death. Finding his end approaching, and anticipating 
that there v/ould be few to weep his departure, to make sure of a great 
mourning in the land, cruel and bloody to the last, he caused, it is said, 
all the chief men of the Jewish aristocracy, toward whom he was never 
friendly, to be imprisoned at Jericho, and exacted a promise from his sister 
that simultaneously with his death they should all be murdered. Although 
this freak of homicidal frenzy failed to be executed, it makes more than 
credible the barbarity that dictated the order for the massacre of all 

* Eph. v : i8. 



THE ANNUNCIATION. 33 

He many sons of Israel shall thence 
Turn to the Lord their God by penitence. 
The messenger, by Malachi foretold : 
The Elijah promised — like to him of old, 
Austere, unbending, fearless, sternly good, 
Trained up and disciplined in solitude. 
Inspiring awe — he shall the Lord precede, 
To turn away from every evil deed. 
And heal all alienations ; parent, child. 



^\x<:)T\^^ViVi!^\^For the law of the Naz- he shall go before him in the spirit 

arite. See Num. vi : 2, ff.] : and he and power of Elias, to turn the 

shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, hearts of the fathers to the children, 

even from his mother's womb. i^And and the disobedient to the wisdom 

many of the children of Israel shall of the just ; to make ready a people 

he turn to the Lord their God. i"And prepared for the Lord. ^''And Zach- 

the children in Bethlehem and vicinity from two years old and under — 
issued probably only a few days or weeks before, and characterized by the 
same furious jealousy which in the space of two years had caused him 
to sacrifice three of his own sons. He died B. c. 4 (that being the true 
date of the Nativity), aged 68 years, and in the 37th year of his reign. 

In his last illness Herod made a will in favor of his two sons by his 
fourth wife Malthace, a Samaritan woman, naming — subject to imperial 
approval — Archelaus as his successor over Judea, Idumea and Sama- 
ria, with the title of ethnarch ; and Herod Antipas over Galilee and 
Perea, with the title of tetrarch ; and assigning to Philip, a son by the 
famotis Cleopatra, a tetrarchy formed out of the northern part of the 
coimtry beyond Jordan. 

It was not this Philip, but another Herod Philip, a private person, son by 
a third wife, that was married to Herodias, daughter of Aristobulus, whose 
abandoned and hardened wickedness culminated in the beheading of John 
the Baptist. She was sister to Herod Agrippa I., called " Herod the 
King " (Acts xii : i), who, unlike his predecessors, being zealous for the law, 



34 THEEVANGEL, 

Each to the other turned and reconciled: 
Through change of mind prepare men to beheve, 
And make a people ready to receive." 
^'How shall I know?" 

" Distrustest thou my word, 
Gabriel, ' God's power,' sent thee from the Lord ? 
But, since thou askest that I put in pawn 
Some pledge of sense to rest thy faith upon, 
Behold, the tongue thus sinning shall be dumb. 
Until the set time of fulfilment come. 

arias said unto the angel, Whereby of God ; and am sent to speak unto 

shall I know this ? for I am an old thee, and to shew thee these glad 

man, and my wife well stricken in tidings. 2oAnd, behold, thou shall 

years. i^And the angel answering be dumb and not able to speak until 

said unto him, I am Gabriel, ["God's the day that these things shall be 

Power"] that stand in the presence performed, because thou believest 

and willing to please the hostile Jews, vexed the Church, killed James the 
son of Zebedee, and imprisoned Peter (a. d. 44). His sudden and horri- 
ble death soon after, is recorded in the same chapter. His entire domin- 
ions equaled those of his grandfather, Herod the Great. He was the father 
of Herod Agrippa II., the " King Agrippa " mentioned in Acts xxv and 
xxvi, before whom Paul spake (A. D. 60). This was the last Prince of the 
House of Herod, dying A. D. 100. 

It is instructive to note, that Archelaus fully justified the character that 
made Joseph afraid after his return from Egypt, to go to Bethlehem, when 
he learned that the more tyrannical of the brothers reigned over Judea; 
for at the end of ten years he had made himself so universally obnoxious 
by his cruelties, that he was banished by the emperor. Herod Antipas 
who ruled in Galilee was more fox (Luke xiii : 32) than tiger, but on occa- 
sion could be cruel as well as cunning. Archelaus was succeeded by 
Roman procurators, of which Pilate was the sixth, being appointed 
A. D. 26, the same year that Christ commenced his ministry. 



THE ANNUNCIATION. 35 

When Zacharias after long delay — 
The people meanwhile wondering at his stay — 
Came forth, and could not speak, but with dazed 

mien 
Made signs, they saw he had a vision seen. 
And when his week of service had expired 
Back to his home near Hebron he retired. 

Rejoice, O barren ! thy reoroach is past — 
Beyond thy hope thou hast thy wish at last. 
Her joy was sacred : when the truth she knew, 
Five months she hid herself from public view. 



IN the sixth month, with similar intent, 
The same celestial messenger was sent 

not my words, which shall be fulfilled those days his wife Elisabeth con- 
in their season. 2iAnd the people ceived, and hid herself five months, 
waited for Zacharias, and marvelled saying, 23Thus hath the Lord dealt 
that he tarried so long in the tem- with me in the days wherein he 
pie. 22And when he came out he looked on me, to take away my re- 
could not speak unto them : and proach among men. 
they perceived that he had seen a 2fiAND in the sixth month the an- 
vision in the temple : for he beck- gel Gabriel was sent from God unto 
oned unto them, and remained a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, 
speechless. 23And it came to pass, 2tTo a virgin espoused to a man 
that as soon as the days of his min- whose name was Joseph, of the 
istration were accomplished [/. e. house of David ; and the virgin's 
seveji days, i Chron. ix : 25], he de- name was Mary. 28And the angel 
parted to his own house. 24And after came in unto her, and said, Hail, 



36 THEEVANGEL. 

To Mary — cousin of Elizabeth — 
A resident of distant Nazareth, 
A maid, betrothed to Joseph, pious, chaste. 
Whose high descent from David could be traced — - 
And Joseph's likewise through another line. 
Streams from one fountain destined to combine. 
Th' announcing Angel, entering, her addressed. 
Premising gratulations thus expressed : 

'* Joy, Mary, joy ! I bring thee news of grace, 
Hail, highly favored ! singular thy case, 
The Lord be with thee, happiest of thy sex ! *' 
If sight of him did startle and perplex. 
In doubt and fear with mighty wonder blent 
She queried what this salutation meant. 

" Fear not," the Angel said, " for thou hast found 
Favor with God, immense, exceeding bound, 
Unspeakable, before vouchsafed to none — 
Thou shalt conceive and shalt bring forth a Son, 

thou that art highly favored, the Mary : for thou hast found favor 

Lord is with thee : blessed art thou with God. siAnd, behold, thou shalt 

among women. 29And when she saw conceive in thy womb, and bring 

him, she was troubled at his saying, forth a son, and shalt call his name 

and cast in her mind what manner JESUS \the Greek form 0/ Joshua 

of salutation this should be. ^oAnd or Jeshua, a Hebrew contraction of 

the angel said unto her, Fear not, Jehoshua, "Jehovah helps (?r saves," 



THE ANNUNCIATION. 37 

And name Him JESUS : He shall be called great, 
Son of the Highest ; God shall reinstate 
Him in His father David's vacant throne 
To reign o'er Jacob evermore alone." 
" How can this be and I a maid ? " 

" With God 
Ev'n things impossible but wait His nod. 
Nothing 's impossible with him who brought 
Creation into being out of nought. 
That Spirit which at first moved o'er the abyss 
And made it pregnant, can accomplish this. 
O'er thee shall be mysterious hoverings, 
And vital broodings of Jehovah's wings — 
Therefore that Holy and Unspotted One 
By God begotten, shall be called God's Son. 
Know too who quickens with immediate life 
Thee, blameless Virgin, makes the barren Wife 

or " Saviour.'' See Num. xiii : 16.] shall this be, seeing I know not a 

32He shall be called great and shall man ? s'And the angel answered 

be called the Son of the Highest : and said unto her, The Holy Ghost 

and the Lord God shall give unto shall come upon thee, and the 

him the throne of his father David : power of the Highest shall over- 

33 And he shall reign over the house shadow thee [irood, hover over, as in 

of Jacob forever : and of his king- Gen. i : 2] : therefore also that holy 

dom there shall be no end. sjThen thing which shall be born of thee 

said Mary unto the angel, How shall be called the Son of God. 



38 THE EVANGEL. 

Fruitful. Elizabeth, thy cousin, she 
Hath, in her withered age, conceived, like thee, 
A son divinely promised, now assured 
Already by five happy months matured." 

" See," Mary said, '' the handmaid of the Lord 
Be it to me according to thy word." 

The Angel gone, what rapture filled her breast I 
What mighty agitation and unrest ! 
It was no dream, and yet she found it hard 
To credit such distinction of regard. 
Among all women, wherefore should she be 
Exalted to such height of dignity. 
Chosen of Heaven, a fallen child of Eve, 
A robe of flesh for God's own Son to weave ? 
A choice, she felt, not having for its base 
Superior merit, but supernal grace. 
Though royally descended, she was poor. 
The plighted spouse of carpenter obscure. 
She little thought when she Esaias read, 



s^And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, 3'For with God nothing shall be im- 

she hath also conceived a son in her possible. s^And Mary said, Behold 

old age ; and this is the sixth month the handmaid of the Lord ; be it 

with her who was called barren, unto me according to thy word. 



THE ANNUNCIATION. 39 



v5- 



It was to her he pointed, when he said 
*' From Jesse's withered stem and dormant root 
A Rod shall issue, and a Branch shall shoot. 
Under whose shade antipathies shall cease ; 
All peoples rest in quietness and peace ; 
Earth be to pristine purity restored, 
Filled with the saving knowledge of the Lord." 

When to that mystic germ dropped down from 
Heaven, 
A conscious lodgement had in her been given, 
Longing for one with whom her joy to share. 
She to her cousin hastened to repair. 
Freighted with that great secret of the sky, 
How did she wish her feet had wings to fly ! 
With speed she journeyed on from day to day 
To the Judean highlands far away, 
Until she Juttah reached with weary feet ; 
And entering in Elizabeth did greet : 

And the angel departed from her. 7nentioned in Joshua xxi : 16], ^oAnd 

3?And Mary arose in those days, and entered into the house of Zacharias, 

went into the hill country with haste, and saluted Elisabeth. ^lAnd it came 

into a city of Juda \a Levitical city, to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard 

conjecturally, Juttah, near Hebron, the salutation of Mary, the babe 

* Is. xi : I, ff. 



40 THE EVANGEL. 

Who, when she Mary's salutation heard — 
Feeling her babe, by some strange transport stirred, 
Leap in her womb, — filled with the Holy Ghost, 
Spake out with sudden inspiration : '' Most 
Divinely blest among all women, thou ! 
And blest thy wondrous fruit, O bearing bough ! 
And whence this favor ? Wherefore should 

it be 
The mother of my Lord should come to me ? 
For, lo, as on my ears thy greeting broke, 
The babe exulting in my womb awoke : 
And happy she who doubted not, for none 
Of those things promised her but shall be done.** 

And Mary — inspiration taught to find 
In saturation of her heart and mind 
With sacred poesy or said or sung, 
Familiar from her childhood to her tongue — 
Now improvises thanks, in borrowed phrase 



leaped in her womb ; and Elisabeth should come to me ? 44For, lo, as 

was filled with the Holy Ghost : soon as the voice of thy salutation 

••^And spake out with a loud voice, sounded in my ears, the babe leaped 

and said, Blessed art thou among in my womb for joy. ''•'^And blessed 

women, and blessed is the fruit of is she that believed: for there shall 

thy womb, ^s^nd whence is this to be a performance of those things 

me, that the mother of my Lord which were told her from the Lord. 



THE ANNUNCIATION. 4I 

From Hannah's ancient canticle of praise,* 
And sweet doxologies of other lyres, 
Changing the language as the case requires : 

'' My soul doth magnify the Lord and praise, 
In God my Saviour doth exult always. 
Because He hath looked down from highest heaven 
Upon His handmaid's low estate, and given 
Such eminence of grace that every clime 
Shall call me happy in all future time. 
For the Almighty, holy is His name. 
Hath done great things for me who have no claim. 
His covenanted mercy doth endure. 
And is to latest generations sure 
On them that fear Him ; nothing in the past 
Promised the fathers but's fulfilled at last. 



«<And Mary said, My soul doth mag- things ; and holy is his name. ^oAnd 

T\ify[MAGtiiFJCAT, whence the name his mercy is on them that fear him 

of the Canticle,'] the Lord, •'"And from generation to generation. siHe 

my spirit hath rejoiced in God my hath shewed strength with his arm ; 

Saviour. ■'^'T'or he hath regarded the he hath scattereth the proud in the 

low estate of his handmaiden : for, imagination of their hearts. 52He 

behold, from henceforth all genera- hath put down the mighty from their 

tions shall call me blessed. ^^For he seats ; and exalted them of low de- 

that is mighty hath done to me great gree. ^sHe hath filled the hungry 

* I Sam. ii : i-io. 



42 THEEVANGEL. 

He sheweth strength with which His arm's en- 
dowed ; 

He scattereth the fancies of the proud. 

He pulleth potentates down from their thrones ; 

Raiseth the lowly, hushing all their moans. 

He filleth with good things who long but lack ; 

While that the rich He sendeth empty back. 

He helpeth Israel, mindful of His grace. 

For aye assured to Abraham and his race." 

Mary with her about three months sojourned, 
Then to her home at Nazareth returned. 

After this, Joseph — when he came to hear 
Mary was pregnant — ^just but not severe, 
Had meant to put her privately away. 
But while he thought on it and made delay, 
An Angel of the Lord in vision said : 

with good things ; and the rich he er, she was found with child of the 

hath sent empty away. '•>^He hath Holy Ghost. 1 9 Then Joseph her 

holpen his servant Israel, in remem- husband, being a just man, and not 

brance of his mercy. ^^As he spake willing to make her a public exam- 

to our fathers, to Abraham, and to pie, was minded to put her away 

his seed forever. •'■f'And Mary abode privily, 20 But while bethought on 

with her about three months ; and these things, behold, the angel of 

returned to her own house. the Lord appeared unto him in a 

Matth. i : 18. Now the birth of dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of 

Jesus Christ was on thiswise: When David, fear not to take unto thee 

as his mother Mary was espoused Mary thy wife : for that which is 

to Joseph, before they came togeth- conceived in her is of the Holy 



THE ANNUNCIATION. 43 

" Mary is guiltless, fear not her to wed — 
For this is God-begot, no child of shame, 
JESUS, ' Jehovah's Help,' shall be His name." 

When Joseph rose from sleep, no more in doubt, 
He all the Angel bade him carried out- 
Took home his wife, but lived they not as one 
Until she had brought forth her first-born Son. 

Ghost. 21 And she shall bring forth as the angel of the Lord had bidden 

a son, and thou shall call his name him, and took unto him his wife. 

JESUS: for he shall save his peo- 2:, And knew her not till she had 

pie from their sins. . . . 2-» Then brought forth her first born son. 
Joseph being raised from sleep, did 



I 



IV. 
THE NATIVITY 



T was a time of gladness and of mirth 



When to a son Elizabeth gave birth. 
Hearing the Lord had given her a boy, 
Came to that feast and fellowship of joy 
Neighbors and kin their pleasure to attest, 
A pious wonder adding to the zest. 
And when the day of circumcision came, 
Time for conferring on the child a name, 
Friends wished it Zacharias, mother, John, 
Though by that name she relative had none. 
The father asked by signs what he desired, 
Writing, " His name is John," they all admired. 

Lukei:57. Now Elizabeth's full father, co And his mother answered 

time came that she should be deliv- and said, Not so ; but he shall be 

ered ; and she brought forth a son. called John, ^i And they said unto 

ssAndherneighborsand her cousins her, There is none of thy kindred 

heard how the Lord had shewed great that is called by this name. 62And 

mercy upon her ; and they rejoiced they made signs to the father, how 

with her. so And it came to pass he would have him called, ^s And 

that on the eighth day they came to he asked for a writing-table, and 

circumcise the child ; and they called wrote, saying. His name is John, 

him Zacharias, after the name of his And they marvelled all. «-»And his 



THE NATIVITY. 45 

No sooner had he done so than his tongue 
Was loosed once more, and God's high praises sung. 

Report of these things everywhere was spread 
Through the hill country, striking awe and dread. 
And men inquired, '' What does this birth portend ? 
So strange beginning marks no common end." 

And the Lord's hand was with him, His dear 
hand, 
Ere he had reached an age to understand — 
Was with him in his cradled helplessness ; 
Tender as mother's tenderest caress ; 
Strong as His own omnipotence to keep 
In perfect safety waking and asleep. 

Then, with the Holy Spirit filled and fired, 
Spake Zacharias, by strong faith inspired. 
Freed now from the imprisonment of doubt. 
Swift thronging words from opened lips rushed out: 

mouth was opened immediately, and heard them laid them up in their 

his tongue loosed, and he spake and hearts, saying. What manner of 

praised God. ^^ And fear came on child shall this be ? And the hand of 

all that dwelt round about them : the Lord was with him. "- And his 

and all these sayings were noised father Zacharias was filled with the 

abroad throughout all the hill coun- Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, 
try of Judea 66 And all they that 



4^ THE EVANGEL. 

" Bless'd be the Lord, the God of Israel, 
For He, in love and faithfulness as well, 
Hath visited His people and set free. 
As by His prophets promised anciently, 
Hath reared in David's house a Horn of Might, 
A strong Deliverer, to quell the spite 
And wrath of enemies and from them save, 
In memory of the covenant He gave, 
And oath He to our father Abraham swore. 
That, rescued from our foes, we evermore 
Unhindered, unmolested, without fear. 
Might serve Him faithfully, with heart sincere, 
In godly, pure and upright lives. Thou, Child, 
The Prophet of the Highest shalt be styled, 
To go the Lord before, His way prepare, 
To herald His salvation, and declare 



68 Blessed be the Lord God of Is- ised to our fathers, and to remember 

rael [BkneT)ICT\j S Dominus Deus hisholycovenant; "The oath which 

Israel] ; for he hath visited and re- he sware to our father Abraham, 

deemed his people. ^^And hath '''* That he would grant unto us, 

raised up a horn of salvatioa for us that we being delivered out of the 

in the house of his servant David, hand of our enemies might serve 

''f As he spake by the mouth of his him without fear, '^ In holiness and 

holy prophets, which have been righteousness before him, all the 

since the world began : "i That we days of our life. '" And thou, child, 

should be saved from our enemies, shalt be called the prophet of the 

and from the hand of all that hate Highest, for thou shalt go before the 

us ; ''2 To perform the mercy prom- face of the Lord to prepare his ways; 



THE NATIVITY. 47 

His grace, in sins remitted and forgiven 
Through the dear pity of Paternal Heaven — 
Which makes the Dayspring, the Upshooting Rays 
Of a celestial Dawn to greet our gaze — 
The Sun of Righteousness with rising light 
To chase the shadows of our mortal night — 
Auroral shinings to high noon increase 
To guide our feet into the way of peace." 



And the Child grew, as grows the sturdy oak — 
No reed-like nature his, or bent or broke 
By every passing breeze, but from a child 
Uncommon, marked, the wonder of the wild. 
Each day, refreshed and nourished by the dew 
Of favoring Heaven, in him each virtue grew, 
As grew his body up to manhood's height : 



'*'^To give knowledge of salvation Zech. iii : 8 ; vi : 12, where the LXX. 
unto his people by the remission of has the same word, it is translated 
their sins, ''''Through the tender " Branch." //^r^zVw^ia'wj'///^ Spring- 
mercy \lit. bowels of the mercy] of ing Day, Daybreak cr Sunrise] from 
our God, whereby the dayspring on high hath visited us, ''^ To give 
{avaroAT}, lit. a coming forth, up- hght to them that sit in darkness and 
shooting, upspringing(7r rising, ^.^. in the shadow of death, to guide 
of the sun, of a branch, of a foun- our feet in the way of peace, 
tain, etc. In Isa. iv : 2 ; Jer. xxiii : 5 ; ^o And the child grew and waxed 



48 THE EVANGEL. 

An abstinent and holy Eremite — 

No fawning courtier, softly clothed, high fed — 

Born in the desert, in the desert bred, 

There to remain, till he that time should reach,. 

When he must publicly appear and preach. 



GOD gives prophetic faculty and gift 
The curtain of Futurity to lift ; 
To climb the Mount of Vision, and descry 
All He has promised, in clear prospect lie. 
But as the eye that takes in at one view 
A varied vastness bounded by the blue. 
Deceiving distances of far and near 
Admonish, things are not as they appear. 
We look on all which our horizon fill, 
And judge the sky is just behind the hill ; 
Not knowing they are separate in place 



strong in spirit, and was in the des- see ? A reed shaken with the wind ? 

arts till the day of his shewing unto 25 g^t what went ye out to see ? A 

Israel. [Luke vii : 24. And when man clothed in soft raiment ? Be- 

the messengers of John were de- hold, they which are gorgeously 

parted, Jesus began to speak unto apparelled, and live delicately, are 

the people concerning John. What in king's courts.] 
went ye out into the wilderness to 



T H E X A T I V I T Y . 49 

By million leagues of intervening space. 

When God vouchsafes, in vision or in dream, 
To picture forth some portion of that scheme 
Which compasses the ages ; gives a glance 
Of part the Future's infinite expanse ; 
Events that touch should not be understood 
As touching, if the analogy holds good. 
But that behind removed from that before 
By twenty centuries and twenty more — 
The earlier time, perhaps, a time of type 
Foretokening a time when time is ripe. 



Now in the fulness of the times, behold ! 
The Woman's Seed, in Genesis foretold, 
Is born to bruise the Serpent's head, and deal 
Destruction with a bruised and trampling heel. 
Seed of the woman as distinct from man ; 
Whence, in the unfolding of the Avondrous plan, 



Gal. iv : 4. But when the fulness between thy seed and her seed ; it 

of the time was come, God sent shall bruise thy head and thou shalt 

forth his son, made of a woman, bruise his heel. \_This Messianic 

made under the law. Gen. iii : 15. an7wunccmcnt, made in the beginning. 

And I will put enmity between thee has been called The Protevangelium 

Ithe serpent] and the woman, and c^r First Gospel.] 



50 T H E E V A N G E L. 

Born of a virgin — even so exact 

To ancient prophecy th' answering fact. 

Miraculously born, that who was first 

In the transgression and deserved the worst 

Might be, by singularity of grace, 

Promoted to the first and foremost place. 

She sinful, coming of a sinful line. 

Brings forth the Sinless — Offspring all divine 

Yet human — fashioned in her honored womb 

To man's similitude : fulfilled in whom 

Many an old and slumbering prophecy, 

From wdiose long sleep the Dayspring from on high 

With waking beam calls up ; its true intent 

Clear in the light of its accomplishment. 

Here Abraham hails his PROMISED SEED, whose 

birth 
Shall bless all tribes and kindreds of the earth. 
Jacob his Shiloh, unto whom shall be 

I Tim. ii : 14. And Adam was not Gen. xli.x : 10. The sceptre shall 

deceived; but the woman being de- not depart from Judah, nor a law- 

ceived was in the transgression. giver from between his feet until 

Gen. xxii : 18. And in thy seed Shiloh come ; and unto him shall 

shall all the nations of the earth be the gathering of the people be. 
blessed. 



THE NATIVITY. 



51 



The gathering of the people finally. 

David his SON and Lord. On bended knees 

Isaiah his Immanuel here sees 

Virgin-born— of whom Jeremiah tells, 
The Lord our Righteousness. Ezekiel's 
Shepherd and Prince. Rebuilding Haggai's 
Desire of Nations, come to bless all eyes 
And fill God's House with glory. Peace to bring, 
The Branch of Zechariah, Priest and Kine. 
The Prince Messiah, of whom Daniel speaks, 
At the completion of the seventy weeks, 



Ps. ex. I. The Lord said unto my 
Lord, Sit thou at my right hand 
until I make thine enemies thy foot- 
stool. Matth. xxii : 41-45. If David 
then call him Lord, how is he his 
son ? 

Is. vii : 14. Behold, a virgin shall 
conceive, and bear a son, and shall 
call his name Immanuel. 

Jer. xxiii : 6. And this the name 
whereby he shall be called, The 
Lord our Righteousness. 

Ezek. xxxiv : 23. And I will set up 
one Shepherd over them, . , even my 
servant David. 24 And I the Lord 
will be their God, and my servant 
David a Prince among them. 

Hag. ii : 7. And the Desire of all 
nations shall come : and I will fill 
this house with sflorv. 



Sech. vi : 12. Behold, the man 
whose name is The Branch ; and 
he shall grow up out of his place, 
13 And shall sit and rule upon his 
throne ; and shall be a priest upon 
his throne : and the counsel of peace 
shall be between them both. 

Dan. ix : 24. Seventy weeks are 
determined ... to anoint the Most 
Holy. 25 From the going forth of 
the commandment to restore and 
build Jerusalem unto Messiah the 
Prince, shall be seven weeks and 
three-score and two weeks. . . 26And 
after three-score and two weeks 
shall Messiah be cut off, but not for 
himself: and the people of the prince 
that shall come shall destroy the city 
and the sanctuary. 27 And he shall 
confirm the covenant with many for 



52 THE EVANGEL, 

Born at the place where Micah's prophecy 

Before precisely fixed it. Malachi, 

Last of the prophets, here perceives, self-sent, 

The Messenger of the New Testament. 

All who by various titles Him foretold, 

His advent now at Bethlehem behold. 

Here Moses finds That Prophet, like to him, 
Who should arise to make his glory dim — 
To whose repealing voice they should attend 
When " Consummatum est " proclaimed the end 
Of the Leviticus : its types outworn. 
Now that the one great Antitype is born. 
No chafing burdens press the weary neck 



one week, and in the midst of the Deut. xviii : 15. The Lord thy 

week he shall cause the sacrifice and God will raise up unto thee a 

the oblation to cease, . . even until Prophet from the midst of thee, ot 

the consummation. . . thy brethren, like unto me ; unto 

Mic. V : 2. But thou, Bethlehem him ye shall hearken. 

Ephratah, . . out of thee shall come John xix : 30. When Jesus there- 

forth unto me that is to be ruler in fore had received the vinegar, he 

Israel ; whose goings forth have said, It is finished \Consuviviatuin 

been from old, from everlasting. est\ : and he bowed his head and 

Mai. iii : i. . . And the Lord gave up the ghost. Rom. x : 4. 

whom ye seek, shall suddenly come For Christ is the end of the law for 

to his temple, even the messenger righteousness to every one that be- 

of the covenant, whom ye dehght lieveth. 

in : behold, he shall come, saith the Heb. vii : 21. . . The Lord sware 

Lord of Hosts. and will not repent, Thou art a 



THE NATIVITY. 53 

For many Aarons one Melchizedec ; 

For many victims one dread Sacrifice 

Making propitious th' offended Skies. 

Each rite, oblation, ordinance and feast ; 

Each slaughtered lamb, officiating priest ; 
All shadows, mysteries, with one consent 
To-day declare, ^' Lo ! this is He we meant. " 

Because the blood of bulls and goats could not, 
In anywise, sin take away or blot, 
After four thousand years have rolled away, 
Not slow nor slack in purpose, hear Him say: 
*" Thou sacrifice and off 'ring wouldest not : 
To placate Thee and human guilt to blot. 
Thou hast prepared for Me a body. Look ! 
I come (it in the volume of the book 
Is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God! " 

So opes the Gospel, publish it abroad ! 

priest for ever after the order of Mel- offer up sacrifice, first for his own 

chizedec. . . 23 And they truly were sins, and then for the people's : for 

many priests, because they were not this he did once, when he offered 

suffered to continue by reason of up himself. Heb. x : 1. For the 

death : 24 But this man, because he law having a shadow of good things 

continueth ever, hath an unchang- to come, and not the very image of 

able priesthood. . . 27Who needeth the things, can never with those 

not daily, as those high priests, to sacrifices, which they offered year 



^4 THE EVANGEL. 

Lift Up your heads, ye gates ! swing wide, 

Ye dazzling portals of the morn ! 
Forth let the Filial Godhead ride 

On wings of cherubim upborne ! 

Nor dare, thou flushed and flattered East ! 

The Sun of Righteousness to stay, 
Now that the long dark night hath ceased. 

And souls are hungry for the day. 

On mountain tops bright heralds stand, 

With beautiful and shining feet, \ 

And publish over sea and land 

The welcome tidings glad and sweet : ; 

He comes ! The sky is all on fire — 
We see the bannered pomp unfurled, 

The advancing Splendor rushing higher 
To flood and overflow the world. 

by year continually, make the com- me) to do thy will, O God. 
ers thereunto perfect. . . -i For it is Psalm xxiv : 7. Lift up your head, 

not possible that the blood of bulls O ye gates ! and be ye lifted up, 

and goats should take away sins. ye everlasting doors, and the King 

5 Wherefore, when he cometh into of glory shall come in. Is. Hi : 7. 

the world, he saith, Sacrifice and How beautiful upon the mountains 

offering thou wouldest not, but a are the feet of him that bringeth 

body hast thou prepared me : . . . good tidings, that publisheth peace ; 

f Then said I, Lo, I come (in the . . that publisheth salvation ; that 

volume of the book it is written of saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth. 



THE NATIVITY . 55 

THE circumstances of His birth were these, 
Whom all the angels worship on their knees. 
It came to pass, it happened, chanced just then, 
In pagan speech and dialect of men, 
Caesar Augustus issued a decree. 
Subtending one promulged by Deity — 
Two lines converging, meeting at one point, 
Diverse in purpose, in event conjoint. 
One edict recent, the imperial last ; 
One from th' abyss of the eternal past, 
Bosom of God, who His high ends fulfils 
By the free workings of all human wills. 

Christ must be born in Bethlehem : so saith 
The Word. The mother lives at Nazareth. 
Unconscious Caesar tells her to go thence, 
(So wondrous are the ways of Providence) 
Her and her husband, registered to be ; 
And thus makes good the ancient prophecy. 



Luke ii : i. And it came to pass 3 And all went to be taxed, every one 

in those days, that there went out into his own city. ^And Joseph 

a decree from Cesar Augustus, that also went up from Galilee, out of 

all the world should be taxed. . . the city of Nazareth, into Judea, 



56 THE EVANGEL. 

Both being of Davidean descent, 
To David's city, Bethlehem, both went ; 
That it might be authenticated there. 
That He who should be born was David's Heir 
By double title :^ Shiloh come at last : 
No failure of succession in the past. 
Barring His birthright : for, however long 
Wrested, usurped by violence and wrong — 
His royal right and just inheritance, 
Endangered not by time nor circumstance, 

unto the city of David, which (because he was of the house and 
is called Bethlehem ["House ol lineage of David), [Heb. vii : 
Bread," i7t allusio?t to its fetiility'], 14. For it is evident that our 

* To meet the requirements of the census, Joseph would need to establish 
in a legal manner his descent ; and as this could be done only by means of 
the genealogies contained in the public registers, kept there probably " in 
his own city," it is more than likely that those given by Matthew and 
Luke are faithful copies of those very ones that were referred to for proof 
that he was " a son of David." Drawn from public sources, accessible 
and open to all, there could be no form of authentication more certain or 
more convincing. 

Being copies, it is easy to understand why they should not deviate in 
the smallest particular from the originals ; and how even an inspired cor- 
rection of points in which they were defective would weaken rather than 
strengthen their authority to cotemporary Jews who were accustomed to 
rely upon them in their present shape. For the ends in view, it were 
enough that there should be substantial correctness. Difficulties of differ- 
ence between the two genealogies given, even though they were of such a 
nature as to defy solution, would be chargeable, not upon the evangelists, 
but the obscurity of the original documents. 

Without noticing others, we shall confine ourselves to that explanation 



Til E NATIVITY. 57 

On the foundation of the promise stand : 
^* The sceptre shall not pass from Judah's hand, 
Nor yet a lawgiver from between his feet, 
Till Shiloh come to stablish and complete — 
The Lion of His tribe, to whom shall be 
The gathering of the people endlessly — 
Judah's unalienated sceptre, sure 
In Him, whose name shall evermore endure." 

Arrived at Bethlehem — compelled to stay 
At an o'ercrowded caravansera 

Lord sprang out of Judah. Psalm call him blessed]. ^jQ^g taxed 

Ixxii : 17. His name shall en- with Mary his espoused wife, being 

dure forever: . . . and men shall great with child. 6 And so it was 

be blessed in him : all nations shall that while they were there, the daf^s 

which seems to us the true one ; meeting, as it does, most if not all of the 
difficulties of the case, in the reconciling of the two tables. Assuming 
that both, primarily at least, relate to Joseph, it will help greatly to a right 
understanding of the matter, if we keep in view the actual drift or inten- 
tion of each. Matthew's object is clearly twofold. In the first place to 
show that Jesus was David's Son ; and in the second place, and more 
especially, that He was David's Heir to the throne. To establish this it 
would be necessary to trace His connection with the reigning line, and so 
we have an enumeration of the names of David's royal successors, Solo- 
mon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joram and the rest down to 
Jechonias or Jehoiachin, who dying without male issue, Salathiel, a de- 
scendant of Nathan, being next of kin, became his heir, and in that sense 
his son. This was the first mingling of the two lines, but there were others 
afterward from the same cause, that is, failure of posterity in the reigning 
house (or, if not actually reigning, entitled to reign). 

According to both Matthew and Luke, Matthan or Matthat was the 



58 THE EVANGEL. 

By richer strangers filled, who here had come 
On the same errand — they, for want of room, 
Were driven out into the place assigned 
To cattle, where the Saviour of mankind, 
The months complete, was born, of her, a maid. 
And after swathing, in a manger laid. 

In that fair region — fertile as of yore, 
Watered of Heaven ; its valleys covered o'er 

were accomplished that she should him in swaddling clothes, and laid 
be delivered. 7 And she brought him in a manger, because there was 
forth her first born son, and wrapped no room for them in the inn. 

immediate common ancestor of Jacob and Heli, the first being Joseph's 
father as given by Matthew, and the latter his father as given by Luke. 
In some such way as that pointed out, it is safe to assume, the title to the 
throne had passed over to Matthan, whose very name by its resemblance 
to Nathan, differing chiefly in the initial letter, is adapted to suggest his 
origin. Jacob, being his eldest born, would be his heir, but in case he 
died without any male descendant, which we take for granted he did, the 
son of his brother Heli would inherit ; and thus it would come about, that 
while Joseph was really the son of Heli, constructively, and in a legal 
sense, he was the son of Jacob. 

We need only to suppose that Mary was a daughter of Jacob, and so 
cousin to her husband, to make Joseph's pedigree, as given by Matthew, 
her pedigree m fact, and that too in the direct royal line, while it was his 
in form. That Mary was of the royal house of David is morally certain : 
otherwise the sonship of Jesus, so often asserted, and so essential to His 
Messiahship, would rest on no better foundation than a legal fiction. 

We have so far anticipated the design of Luke's genealogy, that it is 
almost superfluous to remark, that its sole aim would seem to be to exhibit 
Joseph's private lineage. [See Hervev's Genealogies of our Lord.'] 

The promise that the sceptre should not depart from Judali, until 
Shiloh come, guaranteed to Judah an inalienable and perpetual sever- 



T II E N A T I V I T Y . 59 

With corn ; with flocks its pastures ; scene in truth 
Of that sweet Idyl called the Book of Ruth, 
Where David, son of Jesse, tending sheep. 
In deep glen seated, or on mountain steep, 
Sung to his harp in morn or evening calm 
Many a holy pastoral and psalm — 
As certain shepherds, simple and devout. 
Under the starry heavens were lying out. 
Watching their flocks, while one lifts up the chant, 
'' The Lord my Shepherd is, I shall not want," 

8 And there were in the same [Ps. xxiii : i. The Lord is my 

country, shepherds abiding in the Shepherd; I shall not want, 

field, keeping watch over their flocks Ps. viii : 3. When I consider thy 

by night: heavens, the work of thy fingers: 

eignty, having its fulfilment in David's elevation to the throne of Israel, 
and the continuation of the Davidean dynasty (not reign) down to the 
coming of Christ, David's Son. The Davidean rei^^n, indeed, suffered a 
long interruption, but not the ri^/ii to reign. This could only fail with 
the failure of the fine. So far from the "sceptre departing from Judah," 
when Christ came, as the current interpretation strangely assumes, it was 
then restored and eternally confirmed to Judah in the person of his Divine 
Descendant, becoming in his hands the symbol of " all power in heaven 
and earth." Neither the Herods, nor their Maccabean rivals and predeces- 
sors in the kingdom for one hundred and fifty years, belonged to Judah 
and so what happened to them would lie entirely outside of this prophecy. 
It is according to all scriptural analogy that the ultimate reference should 
be to a spiritual sceptre and a spiritual Israel, into which the national 
should be merged— Israel as a civil commonwealth being from the first 
chiefly significant in its typical relations— " a mere shadow of good things 
to come "—destined to pass away like other secular commonwealths. The 
divine side is always the spiritual. 



6o THEEV ANGEL. 

Or, as with upturned face he ravished sees 
Belted Orion and the Pleiades, 
Singing, "When I the heavens consider, made 
And fashioned by Thy fingers, thick inlaid 
With stars and suns in numbers numberless, 
Lord, what is man, that Thou shouldst come to 

bless" — 
An Angel of the Lord beside them stood ; 
The glory of the Lord in mighty flood 
Shone round about them, luminous and clear, 
And all the shepherds feared with a great fear. 

"Fear not," the Angel said, "good news I bear, 
Cause of great joy to people everywhere. 
In David's City is a Saviour born 
Who is the Christ the Lord this happy morn. 
And this the sign to you : Ye shall not find 
Prepared a stately edifice, designed 
For His reception : this great Potentate 



the moon and the stars, which thou and they were sore afraid [literally, 

hast ordained, -tWhat is man that feared with a great fear]. i^And 

thou art mindful of him, and the the angel said unto them. Fear not; 

son of man that thovi visitest him?] for, behold, I bring you good tid- 

9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord ings of great joy, which shall be to 

came upon them, and the glory of all people. ^^ For unto you is born 

the Lord shone round about them ; this day, in the city of David, a Sa- 



THE NATIVITY. 6l 

And Prince of Heaven and Earth, assumes no state ; 

Comes with no retinue ; conceals and shrouds 

His proper glory under veils and clouds 

Of lowliness ; in stable of an inn 

His Showing and Epiphany begin. 

There look and you shall find in manger laid 

The Infant Christ in swaddling clothes arrayed." 

Then suddenly were present, height o'er height,- 
A countless multitude of the sons of light. 
In mighty chorus singing loud and clear. 
Charming celestial silences to hear : 
'' Glory to God there^ in the highest heaven ! 
Peace here on earth, good will to men forgiven ! " 



When these had vanished from their dazzled gaze. 
Gone up to heaven, the shepherds in amaze 
Said to each other, '' Let us go and see 



viour, which is Christ the Lord: •* Glory to God in the highest, and 

'-And this shall be a sign unto you. on earth peace, good will toward 

Ye shall find the babe wrapped in men. i-^ And it came to pass, as the 

swaddling clothes, lying in a man- angels were gone away from them 

ger. into heaven, the shepherds said one 

13 And suddenly there was with to another. Let us now go even unto 

the angel a multitude of the heaven- Bethlehem, and see this thing which 

ly host, praising God, and saying, has come to pass, which the Lord 



62 THEEVANGEL. 

This thing the Lord hath shown us instantly." 
So they to Bethlehem hastened to repair, 
And found Him in a manger lying there : 
Recounted, then, what they had seen and heard, 
All the angelic embassage averred 
Touching the Child. Men wondered. Mary kept 
These in her heart locked up, while step by step 
She watched to see the mystery unroll, 
' Weighing each part and waiting for the whole. 
The shepherds going, all along the road 
Sung hallelujahs, glorifying God. 

And art Thou come, dear Saviour ! art Thou come 
To this dark world ? Did Pity drive Thee from 
Thy throne above the heavens ? And Love compel 
And guide Thy footsteps? Could none do as well ? 
To make earth rich must heaven impoverished be ? 
That light made dark which angels could not see 



hath made known to us. ^^ And those things which were told them 

they came with haste, and found by the shepherds. i9 But Mary kept 

Mary and Joseph, and the babe 1}^- all these things, and pondered them 

ing in a manger, i'' And when they in. her heart. 20 /^nd the shepherds 

had seen it, they made known returned, glorifying and praising 

abroad the saying which was told God for all the things that they had 

them concerning the child. ^^ And heard and seen, as it was told unto 

all they that heard it, wondered at them. 



THE N A T I V I T Y . 63 

Without amazement ? All be laid aside ? 
Thy glory with the Father? Must Thou hide 
Thy Godhead-splendors in this dense opaque 
Of mortal flesh ? And though Almighty take 
This form of weakness? Wear a servant's guise, 
Maker and Monarch of the earth and skies ? 
When Thou had'st stooped so far, could earth 

afford 
No better presence chamber for her Lord 
Than a poor stable ? And no better bed 
Than a rough manger in which beasts are fed ? 

If careless and ungrateful man forgot 

To celebrate Thy advent, Heaven did not. 

*' Let all the angels worship ! " Godhead said, 

And all the angels, kneeling, homage paid 

At Thy dear feet ; and on the night air flung 



Phil, ii : 6. Who, being in the form ble and invisible, whether they be 
of God, thought it not robbery to thrones, or dominions, or principal- 
be equal with God, ''But made him- ities, or powers, 
self of no reputation, and took upon Heb. i : 4. For unto which of the 
him the form of a servant, and was angels said he at any time. Thou 
made in the likeness of men. art my Son, this day have I begotten 

C)l. i: 15. Who is the image of thee? e And again, when he bring- 

the invisible God. . . '^ For by him eth in the first-begotten into the 

were all things created, that are in world, he saith. And let all the an- 

heaven, and that are in earth, visi- gels of God worship him. 



64 THEEVANGEL. 

Celestial anthems, most divinely sung, 

In praise of that exceeding love and grace 

Which brought salvation to a guilty race. 

Since Thou for worldly pomp hast no regard, 
And dost not care for grandeur, stoop, dear Lord, 
To my low roof! A place with me accept ! 
I have a room, though sordid and unswept, 
In truth, a darksome, dank, unwholesome cell, 
In which it w^ere not fit that Thou should'st dwell. 
Unless Thou send Thy Harbinger before 
To make it clean, to wash and scour the floor, 
Cleansing each corner, purging every part — 
Do this, then enter in — I mean my heart. 
All it contains I'd give to Thee : its will, 
Its love, its fear, its best affections. Fill 
Greatly enlarge it, formed within it be, 
As in thy virgin mother, so in me ! 



Gal. iv : 6. And because ye are Abba, Father. . . i^ My little child- 
sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit ren, of whom I travail in birth again 
jf his Son into your hearts, crying, until Christ be formed in you. 



V. 

THE NAMING. 

/^x\ the eighth day they circumcised the Child, 
^^And named Him JESUS. He, the undefiled, 
Made of a woman, made under the law, 
Bending His pure and patient neck to draw 
In the same yoke with sinners ; in their place. 
By fiction, so to speak, of heavenly grace. 
Standing ; fast bound, by strict and penal bands, 

Luke ii : 21. And when eight days of the angel before he was conceived 

were accomphshed for the circum- in the womb. =* [Luke i : 31.] 

cising of the child, his name was And thou (Joseph) shalt call his 

called JESUS, which was so named name Jesus. [Alatth. i : 21.] 

* Evident emphasis is laid on the fact, that the Name was divinely de- 
termined beforehand. Mary and Joseph did as they were commanded— 
the one before and the other ^//^r conception, and called His name Jesus. 
The Name was not new. On the contrary we have reason to beheve it 
was a common one. The first to bear it was Joshua, son of Nun, whose 
original name was Oshea, identical with Hosea, meaning " Help.'' The 
divine prefix of Jah, a contraction of Jehovah, bestowed by Moses [Num. 
xiii : 16], made it Jehoshua, signifying " Help of Jehovah." Wherever 
the name appears in Greek, it is always Jesus (that being the Greek form) 
—as in the Lxx. throughout ; and in the only two places in which Joshua 
is referred to in the New Testament [Acts vii : 45, and Heb. iv : 8]. 

The next of the name mentioned in the Old Testament is Joshua, the 
son of Josedech, who was high priest, when Zerubbabel was governor of 
Judah, after the Return; and who, incited by Haggai and Zechariah, took 
a leading part in rebuilding the Temple, and in restoring Temple worship 



66 T H E E V A N G E L . 

To do and suffer all the law demands; 
Made sin for us, to the divine intent 
The guilty might be counted innocent. 

O Name ! that doth all other names eclipse, 
Easy and utterable by human lips, 
Pronounceable Jehovah ! Jesus! Lord! 
Familiar in our mouths as household word. 
Name given by the Angel ere His birth ; 

In th>^ Apocrypha, which was written originally in Greek, they are called 
Jesus, the son of Nave, and Jesus, the son of Josedec. The author of 
Ecclesiasticus was "Jesus, the son of Sirach, and grandchild to Jesus of the 
same name with him." Coming down to the New Testament, Paul speaks 
[Col', iv : iij of one " Jesus, which is called Justus ;" and in Acts xiii : 6, 
mention is "inade of one of whom Paul and Barnabas found at Paphos, 
characterized as " a sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar- 
Jesus [son of Jesus]. 

In the first ages Names were significant. Like all first words, they were 
full of truth and beauty ; but they soon ceased to be real. To call was no 
longer to be. Calling was a miscalling. Men were called great that were 
not great ; most noble that were the reverse of noble. Courtly misno- 
mers, false appellatives, the antiphrastic use of words, examples of the 
devilish misnamed divine, filled the world. With a fine irony, or possibly 
in the spirit of deprecation, the Greeks called the Furies, Eumenides, 
meaning Kindly disposed. The Prince of Darkness is Lucifer, Son of the 
Morning. 

The evil of this misnaming is not a slight one. It corrupts all speech. 
It is the essence of all falsehood. It forms the counterfeit coin of social 
exchange. All the fond idolatries of the heathen world sprung from it. 
Their crime was that they " changed the truth of God into a lie, and wor- 
shiped and served the creature more than the Creator" [Rom. i : 25]. 
"Without are whoremongers, murderers and idolaters, and whosoever 
loveth and maketh a lie " [Rev. xxii : 15]. " The guilt of making a lie " 
supplements and sums all other guilt. 

Among the Jews, Jehovah was the ineffable Name. All mention of it 



THENAMING. 6/ 

Highest in Heaven and dearest upon earth ; 
Worthy of worship, every knee shall bow 
To Jesus' Name hereafter if not now. 
A Name of might and terror to compel 
Raging Abaddon and the gates of Hell ; 
Of most miraculous virtue and effect 
To raise the dead and demons to eject. 
Name, potent in three worlds — not hell alone, 
But heaven and earth its high compulsion own. 
Not used to conjure with, a wizard's rod. 
Not muttered magic, but the power of God. 

\vas scrupulously avoided. Owing to a misconstruction of Lev. xxiv : i6, 
they held even to utter it was blasphemy and a capital offense ; so that the 
true pronunciation was lost. Euphemistic substitutes were employed, such 
as " the Name " or " the Name of four letters " (the Greek tetmgrammaton): 
" the great and terrible Name," etc. This savored doubtless of supersti- 
tion, but only as to the form of it. So far as it had its origin in reverence 
it was right. But how shall we characterize that shocking familiarity, 
so common in our own day, which spits the Eternal Name rather than 
speaks it ? 

It was fitting that the Name of Jesus, after it had been prostituted by 
profane applications through long ages, should be magnified at last by a 
just appropriation to One, who, unlike the first Joshua, was not merely 
mediately, but intrinsically and in Himself, the Divine Helper, the Jeho- 
vah-Saviour, " able to save to the uttermost." 

One object of Jacob's wrestling was to wrest the secret of the Divine 
Name. It indicated a profound appreciation of his greatest need. God 
is Power, but is He Love ? God is Justice, but is He Mercy ? Jacob 
secured the blessing but not the Name. The time had not yet come. To 
know God as Elohim, still more as Jehovah, is much; but to know Him 
as Jesus is a blessedness far beyond. Father is better than Sovereign, 
and Saviour dearer than all. 



68 THE EVANGEL. 

All Nature leans to listen ; stoops the Skies 
To hear it sobbed in pleading litanies. 
Through all the ages it vibrates and thrills, 
And Heaven's immensity with rapture fills. 

I a. 

The memory of Jesus' Name"^ 

Is past expression sweet : 
At each dear mention, hearts aflame 
With quicker pulses beat. 

Id. 
But sweet, above all sweetest things 

Creation can afford. 

That sweetness which His presence brings- 

The vision of the Lord. 

II. 
Sweeter than His dear Name is nought : 

None worthier of laud 

Was ever sung or heard or thought 

Than Jesus, Son of God. 

* JUBiLus Rhythmicus de Nomine Jesu. 

I. II. 

Jesu dulcis memoria, Nil canitur suavius, 

Dans vera cordi gaudia, Nil auditur jucundius, 

Sed super mel et omnia Nil cogitatur dulcius 

Ejus dulcis pra^sentia. Quam Jesus Dei Filius, 



THE NAMING. 69 

III. 
Thou hope to those of contrite heart ! 

To those who ask, how kind ! 
To those who seek, how good Thou art ! 

But what to them who find ? 

IV. 

No heart is able to conceive ; 

Nor tongue nor pen express : 
Who tries it only can believe 

How choice that blessedness. 

ni. IV. 

Jesu, spes poenitentibus, Nee lingua valet dicere 

Quam pius es petentibus. Nee litera exprimere, 

Quam bonus te quaerentibus Expertus potest credere 

Sed quid invenientibus. Quid sit Jesum diligere. 

S. BeniLvdus. {XII Century.) 

[The Latin original in fourfold rhymes, forms the beginning of a long 
meditation (192 lines in all) upon the Name of Jesus, by the famous Ber- 
nard, Abbot of Clairvaux (b. 1091, d. 1153]. These with two other extracts 
of an equal number of stanzas, constitute three of the most admired hymns 
of the Roman Breviary ; and are sung at Vespers, Matins and Lauds in 
connection with the Feast of the Name of Jesus. Caswell's translation 
of the above has found its way into most of our Protestant Hymnals, 
beginning, 

Jesus ! the very thought of thee 
With sweetness fills the breast." 

The new version we have tried to make as close as possible.] 



VI. 



THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE. 

TO keep in mind what else they would forget, 
God to His people ordinances set, 
His mercies to commemorate and tell ; 
Whence it became a law to Israel, 
The first-born of the males 'mong man and beast 
Should hallowed be as victim or as priest ; 



[Ex. xiii : 2. Sanctify unto me all 
the first-born, both of man and 
beast ; it is mine. . . ^-i And it shall 
be when thy son asketh thee in time 
to come, saying. What is this ? that 
thoushalt say unto him, By strength 
of hand the Lord brought us out from 
Egypt, from the house of bondage : 
^° And it came to pass, when Pha- 
raoh would hardly let us go, that 
the Lord slew all the first-born of 
man and the first-born of beast : 
therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all 
that openeth the matrix, being 
males ; but all the first-born of my 
children I redeem. Num. xviii : 15. 
Every thing that openeth the matrix 
shall be thine [the priest's] : never- 



theless the first-born of man shalt 
thou surely redeem ; and the first- 
ling of unclean beasts shalt thou 
redeem. ^^'And those that are to 
be redeemed from a month old shalt 
1?hou redeem, according to thine es- 
timation, for the money of five she- 
kels. Lev. xii : 2. If a woman have 
conceived and borne a man child, 
she shall be unclean seven days, . . 
^And in the eighth day he shall be 
circumcised. ^And she shall con- 
tinue her purifying three and thirty 
days. . . ^ And when the days of 
her purifying are fulfilled, for a son 
or daughter, she shall bring a lamb 
of the first year for a burnt-offering ; 
and a turtle-dove for a sin-offering. 



THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE. 7I 

To make God's sparing and delivering act, 
A living history and perpetual fact. 

Because the fatal Angel — on that night 
Before the Exodus, when made to smite 
All the first-born of the Egyptians — left 
The Hebrews of their first-born unbereft, 
The Lord asserted solemnly His claim, 
That those He spared thereby His own became. 
But afterward, when all of one whole tribe 
Was set apart, it pleased Him to prescribe, 
The first born of the sons should be redeemed 
By payment of five shekels (and th' esteemed 
Value of animals unclean) ; these paid. 
And presentation by the mother made 
At the completion of her fortieth day 
Of purification, she must further pay, 



unto the door of the tabernacle of burnt offering, and the other for a 

the congregation unto the priest ; sin offering.] 

■? Who shall offer it before the Lord, Luke ii : 22. And when the days 

and make an atonement for her. . . of her purification according to the 

This is the law for her that hath law of Moses were accomplished, 

born a male or female. ^Andifshe they brought him to Jerusalem, to 

be not able to bring a lamb, then present him to the Lord. 23 (As it is 

she shall bring two turtles, or two written in the law of the Lord, Every 

young pigeons, the one for the male that openeth the womb shall 



1^ 



THE EVANGEL 



If rich, a lamb and dove ; if poor, must bring 
Two doves or pigeons for an offering. 

At the appointed time, the parents brought 
The Infant Jesus, to do all they ought 
According to the custom of the law. 
Entering the Temple, they one Simeon saw, 
Who sighed and longed and waited for as well 
The Paraclete of mourning Israel : 
A just man and devout — from His high throne, 
The secrets of His bosom making known, 
God gave to him the certainty of faith, 
He should the Lord's Christ see before his death. 



be called holy to the Lord ;) 24 And 
to offer a sacrifice according to that 
which is said in the law of the Lord, 
a pair of turtle-doves or two young 
pigeons. -^And, behold, there was 
a man in Jerusalem, whose name 
was Simeon : and the same man 
was just and devout, waiting for 
the consolation \jTc.paKkriatv — the 
abstract, put for the concrete 
TvapdnA-qTO-, Paraclete or Comfort- 
er, from Tvapa, near, and Ka?,.ecj, 
to call, tised as an appellative of the 
Holy Ghost y^z^r times; of Christ 
vnly once, i John ii : i, and there 
rendered Advocate. Properly, it 



means, one called to draw near, one 
invoked to give aid in time of need, 
and who £-ivin^ it becomes a Helper, 
a Comforter, or Advocate, acco7-ding 
as the suppliant is in difficulty , or 
in affile tio?i, or exposed to judicial 
peril or condemnation. As in verse 
30, " salvation " stands for Saviour; 
and in verse -^Z " redemption "ycr Re- 
deemer: so here, " the consolation,' 
embodied and " seen," desig^nates the 
Paraclete or Consoler] of Israel ; 
and the Holy Ghost was upon him ; 
26 And it was revealed unto liim by 
the Holy Ghost, that he should not 
see death before he had seen the 



THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE. 73 

That morn a light within had pointed here : 
A voice said, Go ! into his inward ear ; 
For now the time had come. With eager look 
He watched, he saw, he knew the Child, he took 
The wondrous Infant in his aged arms, 
Perused admiringly His godlike charms. 
Oh ! it was sweet, each lineament to trace. 
Bask in the sunshine of His beauteous face. 
Explore the mystery of His clear eye, 
And the divinity of love descry. 
Did he imagine it, or was it true. 
His smile was conscious as if him He knew.'' 

'' Master ! it is enough. I die in peace. 
Thou hast fulfilled Thy promise. Now release 
Thy servant when Thou pleasest. For mine eyes 

Lord's Christ [Messiah] ; 2- And he over slaves. It is used i?i three other 

came by the Spirit into the temple places of God ; once o??fy of Christ 

ilepov, not vabv. See note to Luke (2 Peter ii : i). To human masters 

1:9]: and when the parents brought it is applied five times\ now lettest 

in the child Jesus to do for him thou thy servant depart \jSvv 

according to the custom of the law, a7ro/lt;ei5-=now thou dost release : 

2s Then took he him up in his arms, Lat. Vtdgate, NUNC dimittis, 

and blessed God, and said, 29 Lord, dost dismiss thy servant] in peace, 

{b^tcnbra, properly , the possessor of according to thy word ; ^o Yox mine 

slaves ; master, in an absolute sense, eyes have seen thy salvation, ^^ 

one exercising uncontrolled power as Which thou hast prepared before 



74 THE EVANGEL. 

Have seen the Saviour, and it doth suffice; 

Whom now Thou hast made ready in the sight 

Of all the world, a Sun dispensing light 

To joyful Gentiles — after long eclipse 

A bright uncovering and apocalypse 

To them that sit in darkness : boast as well 

And glory of Thy people Israel." 

Such words from strangers' lips where'er they 
went 
The parents filled with fresh astonishment. 

With hands uplifted and with arms outspread 
Then Simeon blest them, and to Mary said : 

" Behold ! this Child is destined for the fall 
And rise of many, and a test to all : 
The precious corner stone in Zion put. 



the face of all people: ^2 a light to this child is set for the fall and ris- 

lighten [dg- di: o KaXviplv =z for an ing again of many in Israel; and 

apocalypse, revelation or uncover- for a sign which shall be spoken 

ing, in allusion apparently to Isa. against; (yea, a sword shall pierce 

XXV : 7] the Gentiles, and the glory through thy own soul also;) that 

of thy people Isi-ael. ^^^nd Joseph the thoughts of many hearts may be 

and his mother marvelled at those revealed [Is. viii : 14. And he shall 

things which were spoken of him. be for a sanctuary ; but for a stone 

S-* And Simeon blessed them, and of stumbling and for a rock of of- 

said unto Mary his mother, Behold, fence to both the houses of Israel. 



THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE. 



75 



A stone of stumbling to the proud of foot : 
A mark for contradiction to expose 
Hypocrisies, and hidden thoughts disclose : 
A mighty touchstone and two-edged sword — 
His sure, detective, sharp, incisive word 
Divisions shall create, and hatreds fierce : 
A sword of trial too thy soul shall pierce." 

Anna, a prophetess, four-score and four, 
Many long years a widow, who forbore 
To leave the Temple, yielding nights and days 
To prayer and fasting — entering then joined praise, 



I Pet. ii : 6. Behold, I lay in Sion 
a chief corner stone, elect, precious: 
and he that beheveth on him shall 
not be confounded. . . »And a stone 
of stumbling and a rock of offence, 
even to them which stumble at the 
word, being disobedient. Heb. 
xii : 3. For consider him that en- 
dured such contradiction of sinners 
against himself. . . Ps. xxxvii : 12. 
The wicked plotteth against the 
just, and gnasheth upon him with 
his teeth. John viii : 37. I know ye 
are Abraham's seed, but ye seek to 
kill me, because my word hath no 
place in you. Acts vii : 54. When 
they heard these things they were 
cut to the heart, and they gnashed 
on him (Stephen) with their teeth. 



Matth. X : 34. . . I came not to send 
peace but a sword, ^s Yov I am 
come to set a man at variance 
against his father and the daughter 
against her mother. . . ^e And a 
man's foes shall be those of his own 
household]. ^^ And there was one 
Anna, a prophetess, the daughter 
of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser : 
she was of great age, and had lived 
with a husband seven years from 
her virginity ; ^7 And she was a wid- 
ow of about fourscore and four 
years, which departed not from the 
temple, but served God with fast- 
ings and prayers night and day. 
38 And she coming in that instant 
gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, 
and spake of him to all them that 



76 THE EVANGEL. 

And spake concerning Jesus to all who 
Looked for redemption there, a pious few. 

All done the law commanded, they returned 
Not then to Nazareth, but still sojourned 
At Bethlehem, prolonging happy stay, 
Waiting fulfilments now upon the way. 

Haste to His light, ye Gentiles! Draw ye near, 
Kings, to the brightness of His rising here ! 



looked for redemption in Jerusalem. their own city of Nazareth. [Is. Ix . 

-^ And when they had performed all 2. . . The Lord shall arise upon 

things according to the law of the thee, ^And the Gentiles shall come 

Lord,* they returned \?iot immediate- to thy light, and kings to the bright- 

ly, but cve7itiiall}'\ into Galilee, to ness of thy rising.] 



* The time for redeeming the first-born, called the Presentation, not 
being precisely fixed, it was usually deferred, particularly by those living 
at a distance from the Temple, to the time of the mother's Purification at 
the end of forty days, so that both could be done at once. 



w 



VII. 

THE WORSHIP OF THE MAGI. 

HEN Eastern Magi,^ following afar 
Mysterious beckonings of a travelling Star, 
Came to Jerusalem, and missing there 
The guiding light, sought counsel, saying, *' Where 
Is He your new-born King? for we have seen 

Matth. ii : i. Now when Jesus Where is he that is born King of the 

was born in Bethlehem of Judea in Jews ? [/. e. " Messiah the Prince," 

the days of Herod the King, there for so they were understood^ for we 

came Wise Men [Mayoi] from the have seen his star ["the Star out of 

East [dx'a-oA(jv//z^''.r=the Far East, Jacob, " the predicted si^n\ inthe east, 

/. e. Persia] to Jerusalem, ^Saying, [r/} u.vaTo7\.fi, sing. = the East, i. e. 



* In a recent work, entitled, " The Wise Men : Who they were and •how 
they came to Jerusalem," by F. W. Upham, LL.D., the author contends, 
with marked ability and learning, that the information given by Matthew is 
in reality precise and certain ; and does not leave us in the dark at all : 
that by calling these strangers Magi, he thereby declares their nation and 
character. Like Brahmin and Mandarin, the name itself is enough. 
Having been in constant use for many centuries to designate a partic- 
ular order of men in high and sacred esteem by the Persians, constituting 
in fact the imperial priesthood when Persia was the great empire of the 
earth, it is impossible that Matthew's countrymen, for whom he primarily 
wrote, should be in doubt as to who were meant. As long as the Persian 
Empire lasted (from B. c. 558 to 331) ; and, after the Alexandrian Con- 
quest, during the century of Greek rule that followed ; and the longer 



78 THE EVANGEL. 

While in the Orient, His star serene 
Pointing us hitherward, and as is meet 
Have come to pay our homage at His feet "- 
Herod and the whole city of the Jews 
Were troubled and astounded at the news : 
And he dissembling, with malign intent, 



Babylonia], and are come to worship when he had gathered all the chief 

him. swhen Herod the king had priests and scribes of the people 

heard these things, he was troubled, [the Sanhedrim] together, he de- 

and all Jerusalem with him. ^And manded of them where Christ 

supremacy of the Parthians (from B. c. 150 to A. D. 226) they ceased not 
to be the sacerdotal order of Iran, strong in numbers and in the veneration 
of their countrymen. 

It is true, that among the Greeks and Romans, the name, corning to be 
attached to a vagabond and pestilent class of deceivers in their midst, 
acquired the evil sense of sorcerer or wizard (wise-ard), of which we have 
examples in Acts viii : 9-11 and xiii : 6, 8 ; but nobody will say that it was 
in this sense Matthew used it ; if not, then it must have been in the origi- 
nal, Persian, honorable sense, that known in Palestine, whose relations 
to Persia, dating back to the time of Cyrus and the Captivity, had suffered 
no break, and were always of a friendly kind. 

When it is considered that Matthew, a Jew, is writing for the Jews of 
Palestine, as appears from the whole tenor of his narrative, and all his 
assumings from first to last, never stopping to explain what is local and 
idiomatic ; the naive and unconscious way in which he uses the plural 
anatolo7i in the first verse, and the singular ajiatolewiih the definite article, 
in the second, making a distinction where the English and other versions 
make none, proves conclusively that in Palestine, at least, however it may 
have been elsewhere, the two words must have been used to discriminate 
between countries lying Eastward, and that too in a precise manner ; for 
to express a vague generality one word would have been enough. 

Between the Perean Hills beyond the Jordan, and the mountains of 
Persia, full six hundred miles away, stretches an immense unbroken Plain, 
part desert, part garden. All this side the Euphrates, five hundred miles 



THE WORSHIP OF THE MAGI. 79 

For priests and rabbis of the people sent 

To learn from them Christ's birth-place. Having 

heard, 
He bade the men : " Go, seek, and bring me word 

should be born. •'■-And they said unto od, when he had privily called the 

him, In Bethlehem of Judea: for wise men, inquired of them dili- 

thus it is written by the prophet, gently what time the star appeared. 

«And thou Bethlehem in the land of «And he sent them to Bethlehem, 

Juda, art not the least among the and said, Go and search diligently 

princes of Juda : for out of thee for the young child, and when ye 

shall come a Governor, that shall have found him, bring me word 

rule my people Israel. "^ Then Her- again, that I may come and worship 



wide, is an arid waste, swept by sand-storms and the deadly simoon"' 
pathless and uninhabited except by wandering Arabs. It is the Syrian 
Desert, an offshoot of the Arabian. It becomes grassy on the north 
toward Damascus, and (he route of travel, although circuitous, was usually 
at this extremity. Midway, in a beautiful oasis, was Tadmor or Palmyra, 
built by Solomon. That part of the Plain which lies between the Eu- 
phrates and the Tigris, called by the Greeks Mesopotamia (meaning 
" between the rivers " ), has an average width of one hundred miles. It 
was once a miracle of fertility and populousness. In earlier times it was 
known as the Plain of Shinar, the Land of the Chaldees, and later as Bab- 
ylonia. Here was the cradle of the Hebrew race, and the land of the 
Captivity. Beyond the Tigris rose the mountains of Kurdistan, the 
ancient Zagros, forming the outposts of the elevated plateau which consti- 
tuted Iran or Persia. With India, which lies still further to the East, we 
have nothing to do. 

Now it is in evidence that by anatalon is meant specifically Persia. It is 
so used Is. xli : 2, where Cyrus is spoken of as the Righteous Man from 
the [Far] East {anatolori) : and again Is. xlvi : 2, where the Persian Eagle, 
the ensign of Cyrus, and of Persia down to this day, is described as " the 
ravenous bird [or eagle] from the Far East." 

So, too, the term " the East " {tt] avarolr]) is not general nor vague, but 
definite and restricted. In the first century to the Palestinian Jews, by every 
geographical and historical consideration, the country of Babylonia, lying 
due East, would be meant, and no other. Hebrew usage in this respect 



Bo THE EVANGEL. 

When you have found Him, that I also may 
Come and Him worship" — meaning Him to slay. 

Departing, lo ! their starry friend, once more 
Appearing, went their joyful steps before, 
With conscious guidance, till ere long it brought 
Them to the infant feet of Him they sought. 



him also, 9 When they had heard they saw the star they rejoiced with 

the king, they departed; and, lo, exceeding great joy. ^ And when 

the star, which they saw in the east, they were come into the house, they 

went before them, till it stood over saw the young child with Mary his 

where the young child was. i<'When mother, and fell down, and wor- 



was similar to what obtains in this country. The popular name in Massa- 
chusetts for the State of Maine is "Down East." We speak of "the 
West" and " the P'ar West," but restrict even the latter to the territory 
this side of the Rocky Mountains. The Levant [Levante, which is an 
Italian word signifying "the East"), first used by the Venetians and 
Genoese, is another example (not noticed by the author) of a like employ- 
ment of the same general term in a strict, special, idiomatic sense, express- 
ive of the relative geographical and commercial position of the people 
with whom it originated. The Evangelist, therefore (according to our 
author), is to be understood as saying that the Magi came originally from 
Persia, but first saw the Star while sojourning or dwelling in Babylonia. 

According to the Persian creed, the Supreme Deity, Ormuzd {Ahura- 
Mazda, "the Great Giver of Life"), was the Creator of light ; and Ahriman 
"the Death dealing"), the self-existent Evil Spirit, the Persian Satan — 
the Creator of darkness. Between these two there was a never-ceasing 
conflict ; but it was predicted that a Zosiosh or Redeemer — a Saviour- 
King — would come to do away with death and raise the dead. The 
Iranian religion, therefore, was a religion of hope. Schlegel remarks that 
in the Bible the Persians are not classed with the heathen nations, but are 
distinguished from them (Is. xlv : i). God calls Cyrus " His Anointed," 
and " My Shepherd." Nevertheless, in contradiction and reproof of the 



THE WORSHIP OF THE MAGI. 8l 

They falling down adoring kissed the floor. 
And opening th' abundance of their store 
Presented gifts — such as befitting were 
The Saviour-King — gold, frankincense and myrrh. 

Returning not to Herod, warned of God, 
They journeyed homeward by another road. 



shipped him : and when they had oracularly or divinely advised) 

opened their treasures, they present- in a dream that they should not 

ed him gifts; gold, and frankin- return to Herod, they departed 

cense, and myrrh. 12 And being into their own country another 

warned of God {xpr][jLaTLG-&ivTE<;:, way. ^^And when they were de- 



false dualism of his creed, He tells him (Is. xlv : 7), "I form the light and 
create the darkness. I make peace and create evil." 

The Persians, holding to the spirituality of God, had no temples noi 
images. They worshiped Him before a flame of fire but were not fire- 
worshipers. The visible fire on their altars was the symbol of the invisible 
Fire which pervaded all nature ; the hidden Shekinah, the Light concealed 
underneath all that shines — the sun, moon and stars. This reverence for 
the media, easily mistaken for idolatry, often no doubt became idolatrous. 
But Zoroaster taught the unity of God ; and some of his disciples rejected 
and sought to eliminate the dogma of two Creators, one of good and the 
other of evil. 

One is struck in reading the proclamations of the earlier Persian kings, 
found in Ezra, with their religious, and, so to speak, orthodox character. 
But the remarkable fact has received remarkable confirmation in recently- 
discovered monumental inscriptions, to the silencing of scepticism. The 
fact is, although erroneous and greatly defective, the religion of the Magi 
was not alien but akin to that of the Hebrews in many respects. They 
long existed side by side, and it would be strange, indeed, if the readers 
of the Avesta or Persian Scriptures were not acquainted likewise with 
the Sacred Writings of the Jews. In this they would find every thing to 
attract and noticing to repel. Candor would even compel them to admit 
6 



g2 T II E E V A N G E L . 

And Joseph, likewise, warned of Herod's spite, 
Fled into Egypt with the Child by night, 
Staying till Herod's death ; that what was told 

parted, behold, the angel of the until I bring thee word : for Herod 

Lord appeareth to Joseph in a will seek the young child to destroy 

dream, saying. Arise, and take the him. i^ When he arose, he took the 

young child and his mother, and young child and his mother by night, 

flee into Egypt, and be thou there and departed into Egypt : * i^^nd 



that Moses was superior to Zoroaster ; that in all the Avesta or Zend-Avesta 
there was nothing comparable to the opening sentence in Genesis : " Let 
there be Light ! and Light was "—and that as a symbol of Deity, nowhere 
as there were the praises of their revered element so worthily or so sublimely 
celebrated. Indeed, it would seem as if they had already become half 
converts to Judaism, when Persian kings ordered the Temple to be rebuilt 

* Tradition fixes the place of their sojourn at On (= Light), Heliopolis, 
the city of the Sun, called in Jer. xliii :i3, Beth-shemesh (the house of the 
sun) ; where stood the great Temple of the Sun or RA, with its avenues 
of sphinxes and rows of " petrified sunbeams " (?^^^«-ra=sunbeam) obeUsks 
[a Greek word m'eaning "a spit," used by way of contempt] ; of which 
only one remains. Over the portal was the Sun-god, the Hawk-headed 
Osiris. From the worship of Ra or the Sun were derived the names of 
the kings and priests. " Pha-raoh " means " the Child of the Sun ;" and 
" Potiphe-rah," "the Servant of the Sun." We are told (Gen. xli. 43) 
Joseph's bride was " a daughter of Potipherah, priest of On." .On was 
the Oxford of ancient Egypt. Here, it is likely, Moses was educated, and 
thus became "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." It is the 
supposed place of Abraham's sojourn. It contains the sacred fig-tree 
shown to pilgrims for many centuries, as that under which the Holy Fam- 
ily rested. The time of their flight to Egypt and their stay is uncertain. 
Of the first we know it must have been subsequent to the Presentation, 
and less than two years after the Birth of Christ. Their stay has been put 
at seven years by some and three years by others. Was it not still less ? 
The ragged stuff and and nonsense of the Arabic Apochryphal Gospel 
concerning what happened while they were in Egypt, belong to the silliest 
of " profane and old wives' fables," which we are told to " refuse." 



THE WORSHIP OF THE MAGI. 83 

Primarily of Israel of old, 
Might have fulfilment in a Dearer One, 
And " Out of Egypt I have called my Son," 
Be proved twice true, be verified twice o'er, 



was there until the death of Herod: my son. i^Then Herod, when he 

that it might be fulfilled which was saw that he was mocked of the wise 

spoken of the Lord by the prophet, men, was exceeding wroth, and 

saying, Out of Egypt have I called sent forth, and slew all the children* 



at Jerusalem at their own cost ; and directed further, that prayers there 
should be said for the king and the people of Persia forever. 

In like manner among the Chaldeans, God, it would seem, did not leave 
Himself without a witness. The most ancient of all the known Chaldean 
oracles ran thus : " When thou seest a sacred fire of a new form, shining 
through the depths of space, then hear the voice of that fire. "Sian/ejy's 
Chald. Philos. 

Considering to Balaam, a Chaldean astrologer, it was given to foretell 
a King of whom a Star in heaven would be the sign ; and to Cyrus, the 
Persian, the honor of being called the Lord's Shepherd to lead back His 
people from Exile ; who so hkely or who so fit as a select number of the 



* The traditional number slain was 14,000. Jeremy Taylor depicts the 
unspeakable anguish of "fourteen thousand mothers, who in one day saw 
their pretty babes pour forth their blood into the bosom whence not long 
before they had sucked milk." They were classed among the Protomar- 
tyrs, and canonized under the name of the " Holy Innocents." Modern 
computation, going perhaps to the other extreme, refuses to allow a greater 
probable total than ten or twelve, inasmuch as Bethlehem was only a small 
country town, and its neighborhood not populous. The Apochryphal 
Gospel, styled The Protevangelium of James the brother of the Lo7'd, 
relates that Herod sought to kill John likewise, but his mother having 
secreted him, he was so incensed against his father Zacharias because 
he would not discover his hiding-place that he "slew him between the 
temple {vabv) and the altar " (Matth. xxiii : 35). But there is no reason to 
believe that the Zacharias here spoken of was the father of John. 



84 THEEVANGEL. 

Exemplified in many a scripture more, 
Touching events in the prophetic past 
Fulfilled in Him the Antitype at last. 

The balked and angry Herod, when he knew 
The mocking of the Magi, sent and slew 
All children found in Bethlehem, that were " 
Of two years old and under: murderer 



that were in Bethlehem, and in all old and under, according to the 
the coasts thereof, from two years time of which he had diligently 



most spiritual of these Persian Magi — divinely enlightened beyond their 
fellows, believers in one God, not idolaters like other Gentiles, to whom 
the coming of a Redeemer was a familiar hope, not ignorant it is likely of 
Balaam's prophecy, nor of Daniel's predictions as being once the honored 
chief of their order — to be chosen to bear their own devout homage, and 
representatively that of the Gentiles, to the feet of the Saviour-King, 
themselves an offering and a kind of lirst fruits of a converted world. 

Miracle, just so far as miracle was needed; preternatural agencies of 
dream and star or semblance of a star for monition and guidance, we 
know were not withheld ; but it may be that these only supplemented 
means of a natural kind. In March, 1604, there was a great astrological 
wonder: the planets Saturn, Jupiter and Mars were in close conjunction, 
forming a fiery trigon in the fiery signs, Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, an 
event which occurs only every eight hundred years. In October of the 
same year a New Star was observed in the constellation Serpentarius. It 
came in triumphal pomp in the very quarter of the heavens where two of 
these planets were still together. It having occurred to Kepler, the great 
Christian Magus, that the Star seen by the Magi might have had a like 
ushering in, he, upon tracing their orbits backward, made the remarkable 
discovery that there was in the year of Rome 747, on the 29th of May 
(the conjectured time of Christ's birth, or possibly ot His conception),. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE MAGI. 85 

Of many to make sure of one. O fool ! 
To think he could prevent Messiah's rule. 

Then was fulfilled that dirge of tender woe, 
Which Jeremiah, centuries ago, 



inquired of the wise men. " Then ken by Jeremy the prophet, say- 
was fulfilled that which was spo- ing, ^Hn Rama was there a voice 



a conjunction of Jupiter and vSaturn in the constellation Pisces (Fishes).* 
With what extraordinary feelings of mingled curiosity and devout won- 
der must these ancient sleepless watchers of the heavens have contemplated 
that magnificent spectacle of marshaled planets, then in their perihehon, 

*It is a curious coincidence, to say the least, and one that has not been 
hitherto noticed in this connection, that the constituent letters of the Greek 
word for Fish, IXGT2 (Ichthus), form the initials in Greek of the name 
'lijGovg- XpioTog- Qeov Tlog- lurrjp [or Nt^V^oc] 
I ch th u s [n] 

"Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Saviour; " or in case we use the accusative 
{as Tertulian does) with a final N instead of 2, and let this stand for 
N^TTfor. meaning "a Babe," then the reading would be, "Jesus Christ 
the Son of God, a Babe." It is well known that in the first centuries the 
Fish was constantly used both as a figure of Christ and a symbol of Bap- 
tism. St. Augustine calls the apparition of the Star to the Magi — lingua 
cceli — " a word from heaven." 

As God once deigned to teach men by type and symbol, why should it 
be thought unworthy of Him to speak in the universal language of the 
liieroglyphical heavens, and make stellar worlds and planetary configura- 
tions an alphabet to spell out the exact time throughout all time when He 
brought His Only Begotten Son into the world, and said "Let all the 
Angels of God worship Him." Should it be objected that the sign of the 
Fishes could not have signified to the Magi what it did to the first Christians ; 
that its language was only then made intelligible after the devout labors 
cand sublime unfoldings of a Kepler ; it yet may serve for (3«r confirmation 
in the faith, upon whom the ends of the world have come. " He that hath 
ears to hear let him hear." 



S6 THE EVANGEL. 

Struck from his lyre, elegiac and sweet, 
And made the hills of Bethlehem repeat : 
*' A cry in Rama heard ! Funereal wail, 
Weeping and loud lament afflict the gale 
That sweeps o'er Rachel's lonely tomb, and speaks 



heard, lamentation [Td-g/jvog; a wail- Rachel weeping for her children, 
ing, a threne, a funereal dirge], and would not be comforted, be- 
and weeping, and great mourning, cause they are not. i^gut when 



hanging large and low, as seen through that clear and crystal atmosphere ; 
now for the fourth time in the space of a few months in portentous conjimc- 
tion, with another planet added ; and shining, we assume, in what was called 
astrologically the Judean quarter of the sky ! Was it then or earlier that 
they witnessed a still greater marvel, if possible — the sudden apparition of 
a Sidereal Stranger, a New Star, so it seemed, to which all the other stars 
did homage ; a bright and beckoning presence, which, moving westward, 
and pointing the way, invited them to follow ? Previously instructed, it 
may be, as afterward, in a dream, they were not disobedient to the heav- 
enly vision. Under that celestial guidance they crossed the Euphrates ; 
with charmed and willing feet pursued their way across the desert steppes 
of Syria many a league, till from the heights of Gilead they caught a view 
of Palestine, and crossing the Jordan at length reached Jerusalem. From 
the circumstance of their heavenly escort, " the Star out of Jacob," now 
faihng them, they would be led to infer, even if not before divinely 
informed, that they were to go no farther ; that here was the object of 
their search, even "Messiah the Prince" (or, preferably, as the 
ancient Syriac version gives it), "the Anointed One, the King," 
that "King of the Jews," predicted by Daniel — being convinced that 
their long-expected Zosiosh, and Oshanderbegha {I/omo Mundi), was no 
other than He — the new-born Jehovah-Saviour, the Heaven-descended, 
Heaven-crowned, Universal King — whom they found at Bethlehem and 
worshiped. 

Beyond all reasonable doubt the Star was only a star in appearance, 
with a special function — a heavenly candle to light them on their journey, 
and then blown out as no longer needed, when " the day dawned, and the 
day star arose in their hearts." A little light serves for illumination when 



THE WORSHIP OF THE MAGI. 



Her wild maternal grief in sobs and shrieks, 
And meanings of despair — her children dead, 
Or into mournful exile captive led." 

^ Why do the people rage, and wicked kings 
Plot and imagine vain and cruel things 

Herod was dead, behold, an angel and take the young child and his 
of the Lord appeareth in a dream to mother, and go into the land of 
Joseph in Egypt, saying, 20 Arise, Israel ; for they are dead which 

it falls on the open eye of a sincere seeker after knowledge ; while blazing 
constellations and the sun shining in his strength avail nothing to them 
who do not care to see. Jewish Rabbis could tell where Christ should be 
born, but permitted the Persian Pilgrims to go alone to find Him, 

The desire to find in the visit of the Magi the fulfilment of those proph- 
ecies t which speak of kings bringing gifts and offering worship, early led 
to the assumption that these were kings. The number was arbitrarily 
fixed to three — either because the Trinity was three, or the gifts were 
three, or there were three parts of the earth, or three great divisions of the 
humaA race. Symbolic meanings were attributed to the gifts. The gold 
pointed to His Kingship ; the frankincense bore witness to His Divinity ; 
the myrrh to His Humanity, while it prefigured the bitterness of His 
Passion and His embalmment for Burial. At a later period names were 
added, and they were called Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. According 
to Bede, Melchior, who was a hoary-headed old man with a long white 
beard, offered the gold. Caspar, who was a young man, beardless and 
ruddy, the frankincense. And Balthazar, who was dark and full-bearded, 
the myrrh. In these it is easy to discover the originals of the earlier Paint- 
ers. The Latin hexameter distributes their offices differently : 

Caspar fert myrrham, thus Melchior, Balthazar aurum. 

They bore other names, such as Magalath, Pangalath and Saracen ; 
Appellius, Amerius and Damascus, and many besides. 

In the Eastern Church there were another set of traditions. According 

* Ps. ii : 1-8. t Ps. Ixxii, ; Is. xhx : 7, 23 ; Ix : 16. 



88 THEE V ANGEL. 

Against the Lord and His Anointed ? He, 

That sitteth in the heavens, derisively 

Shall laugh, and vex them sore, and say, " I yet, 

In your absurd despite. My King have set 

Upon My holy hill of Zion, not 

In vain. Thou art My Son, this day begot : 



sought the young child's life. 2iAnd and his mother, and came into the 
he arose, and took the young child land of Israel. 22 But when he heard 



to one, the Magi came to Jerusalem with a retinue of one thousand men, 
leaving behind them seven thousand men on the further bank of the 
Euphrates. A prediction of Zoroaster, that the coming of a Mighty One 
and a Redeemer would be heralded by a Star, was the chief moving cause 
of their journey. According to another legend, the Magi came from the 
extreme East, bordering on the ocean. An ancient writing that bore the 
name of Seth taught them to expect a Star, and the expectation was 
handed down from father to son. " Twelve of the holiest were appointed 
to be ever on the watch. Night by night they washed in pure water, and 
prayed and looked out on the heavens. At length the Star appeared, and 
in it the form of a young child bearing a cross. A voice came from it and 
bade them to proceed to Judea. They started on their two years' journey, 
and the meat with which they started never failed them. The gifts they 
brought were the same which Abraham gave to their progenitors, the sons 
of Keturah ; which the Queen of Sheba in her turn presented to Solomon ; 
and which had somehow found their way back again. After their return 
to their own country they gave themselves up to a life of contemplation 
and prayer. St. Thomas found them in Parthia, baptized them, and they 
became evangelists of the new faith." 

During the rage for relics in the fourth century, the bodies of the Magi, 
it was pretended, were found somewhere in the East, and brought to Con- 
stantinople, where they were deposited in the Church dedicated to Divine 
Wisdom, i. e. St. Sophia. Subsequently the precious relics were trans- 
ferred to Milan. When Milan fell into the hands of Frederick Barbarossa 
(a. d. 1162), Cologne obtained them. There in the great Cathedral, in a 
chapel immediately behind the high altar, stands the celebrated S/irine of 



THE WORSHIP OF THE MAGI. 89 

Assume at once thy birthright ! Take the rod 
Of universal empire, reign as God ! " 

When, after Herod's death, by God's-command 
Joseph now come into his native land. 
Heard Archelaus in his father's stead 



•that Archelaus did reign in Judea was afraid to go thither :* notwith- 
in the room of his father Herod, he standing being warned of God in a 



the Three Kings, once decorated with gold and gems of immense value, 
the offerings of devotees for miraculous cures sought or wrought through 
several centuries. Their skulls inscribed with their names — Gaspar, Mel- 
chior and Balthazar — written in rubies, are seen through an opening in the 
shrine, crowned with diadems made formerly of pure gold, and studded with 
real jewels. On the front of the shrine are these two monkish leonine lines •' 

Corpora sanctorum recubant hie terna Magorum ; 
Ex his sublatum nihil est, alibive locatum. 

Here the three bodies slumber, the holy Magi's full number — 
Nought from them is abated, or is elsewhere located. 

The Feast instituted in commemoration of the arrival of the Magi is called 
the Epiphany ('E'n-t(l)uvetn), of which the general meaning is " Manifesta- 
tion." The word occurs 2 Th. ii. 8 : i Tim. vi : 14; 2 Tim. i : 10; iv : i, 



* It appears that Joseph and Mary, when they left Nazareth to go to 
Bethlehem to be taxed, had intended to make that their permanent abode. 
Naturally, therefore, when returning from Egypt, their first thought would 
be to go thither again, especially as they had a right to suppose that it was 
Herod Antipas, who had a character for mildness, that reigned in Judea ; 
and that Archelaus reigned in Galilee ; this having been Herod's original 
appointment, as pubhcly given out. Of the change made in his will just 
before his death he was evidently ignorant. Although Matthew says 
nothing of Joseph's previous residence in Nazareth, and Luke makes no 
mention of the visit of the Wise Men, the two narratives are in admirable 
accord, supplementing and explaining one another in a wonderful manner. 



90 T H E E V A N G E L . 

Reigned in Judea, he was seized with dread, 
And went not thither. Nevertheless anew 
Warned in a dream, he secretly withdrew 
Thence into Galilee, and came once more 
To Nazareth, and dwelt there as before — 
A place of vile repute, a city mean — 
Whence came it, Christ was called a Nazarene 
Fulfilling prophecies that said, His name 
Should be a synonym of scorn and shame. 



dream, and turned aside into the that it might be fulfilled which was 
parts of Galilee ; 23 ^nd he came spoken by the prophets, he shall be 
and dwelt in a city called Nazareth : called a Nazarene. 



8 ; Titus ii : 13. In the first place cited it is rendered " brightness," in 
all the rest "appearing," and the reference in every case is to Christ's 
Second Coming in glory. The Scriptural application, therefore, differs 
from the Ecclesiastical, which confines it to an event, significant to be 
sure, but not more so than Christ's Birth or Baptism. Admitting that to 
the Magi there was an Epiphany, a miraculous Manifestation and Dis- 
covery of His divine power and glory, there were other Epiphanies, one 
particularly on the Mount of Transfiguration, equally deserving, to say the 
least, of being singled out as " The Epiphany." Some authorities refer 
it to the appearance of the Star. 



A 



VIII. 
EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

ND the Child grew, O mystery of growth ! 

By natural law in mind and body both : 
Normal development of bud and flower, 
Unfolding day by day and hour by hour 
Their hidden loveliness — new charms of face, 
New revelations of surprising grace, 
And excellence of wisdom — hinting thus 
The shrouded glories of the God-With-Us, 
The Word made flesh : He man's Playfellow made 
Who was Companion of the Eternal ; laid 
The earth's foundations; built the skies; 
Out of the windows of whose wondrous eyes 



Lukeii: 52. And Jesus increased ning, or ever the earth was. . . . 

m wisdom and stature, and in favor ^^when he prepared the heavens, I 

withGod and man. [Prov. viii : 22. was there : when he set a compass 

The Lord possessed me (Wisdom) upon the face of the depth : 28"When 

in the beginning of his way, before he estabhshed the clouds above : 

his works of old. 23 j -was set up when he strengthened the fountains 

from everlasting, from the begin- of the deep : 29\vhen he gave to the 



.92 THE EVANGEL. 

Immortal wisdom beamed, with lustre kind 
And gradual radiance so as not to blind : 
To show what beauty doth in childhood He, 
Became a child to childhood glorify."^ 

Divine, Eternal Word, 

Who makest sucklings wise ! 

The Alphabet of heavenly lore ! 
The Primer of the skies ! 

Our letters thus to be. 

Thou didst from heaven descend — 
Alpha, Omega, First and Last, 

Beginning and the End ! 



-sea his decree, that the waters should daily his delight, rejoicing always 
not pass his commandment : when before him ; si Rejoicing in the hab- 
he appointed the foundations of the itable part of his earth ; and iny de- 
earth: 30 Then I was by him as one lights were with the sons of men. 
brought up with him: and I was Rev. i : 8. I am Alpha and Omega, 



* Christ, the Saviour of all ages, became a child for children, a youth 
ifor youth, a man for men, to the end that he might sanctify and be a 
pattern to each — according to the oft-quoted passage from Irenaeus, a 
disciple of Polycarp (Adv. Her. iii. 22) : 

" Omnes enim per semetipsum venit salvare, omnes, inquam, qui per eum rena- 
scunter in Deum, infantes et parvulos et pueros et juvenes, et seniores. Ideo per 

■omnem venit aetatem et infantibus infans factus, sanctificans infantes, in parvulis par- 
vulus, sanctificans lianc ipsam habentes setatem, simul et exemplum illis pietatis 

•effectus, et justitise et subjectionis, in juvenibus juvenis. exemplum juvenibus, fiens 

■et sanctificans Domino. 



EARLY CHILDHOOD. 



95 



Like children we would sit, 
Jesus, at Thy dear feet, 

And learn of Thee the rudiments 
So simple and so sweet. 

Thou, Christ, art very God ! 

Once taught Thy name to spell, 
Delighted we decipher it 

On all Thy works as well. 

In Thee, in Thee, we find 
The key that all unlocks — 

The secrets of the starry heavens, 
The writing on the rocks. 



the beginning and the ending, 
saith the Lord, which is, and which 
was, and which is to come, the Al- 
mighty. 

Luke xviii : i6. But Jesus said, 
Suffer httle children to come unto 
me, and forbid them not, for 
of such is the kingdom of God. 
1'' Verily I say unto you. Whosoever 
shallnot receive the kingdom of God 
as a little child shall in no wise enter 
therein. 

Matth, xi : 25, 26 ; Luke x : 21, 
23. In that hour Jesus rejoiced in 
spirit, and said, I thank thee, O 



Father, Lord of heaven and earth,, 
that thou hast hid these things from 
the wise and prudent, and hast re- 
vealed them unto babes ; even so. 
Father, for so it seemed good in thy 
sight. All things are delivered to 
me of my Father ; and no man 
knoweth who the Son is but the 
Father ; and who the Father is, but 
the Son, and he to whom the Son 
will reveal him. 

John i : 17. No man hath seen 
God at any time ; the only begotten 
Son, which is in the bosom of the- 
Father, he hath declared him.] 



IX. 

THE SON OF THE LAW. 

HIS parents went up to Jerusalem 
Yearly to the Passover: He with them, 
When He was twelve years old, up also went 
Being the legal age. The seven days spent, 
As they returned, Jesus remained behind. 



Luke ii : 41. Now his parents obligation to keep it], they went 

went to Jerusalem every year at the up to Jerusalem after the custom 

feast of the Passover. •'^ And when of the feast. ^r.^nd when they 

he was twelve yeavs old '^ [mates at had fulfilled the days {the feast 

that age zuere called " sons of the lasted seven days], as they returned, 

law," being thencefotivard under the child Jesus tarried behind in 



* It is true in one sense, though not in another, the Life given in the 
Four Gospels is incomplete. Of the events of Christ's Infancy and Child- 
hood to the age of twelve, and of the intervening years up to thirty, all 
record is wanting. As it was left it remains. Like some matchless torso 
of divine art, it defies addition or supplement. We should not know how 
divine was the divine were it not for the human. The Apocryphal Gos- 
pels, so called, are ancient attempts to piece out the record and fill up 
gaps. The difference is infinite. Infidelity admits it. Renan says : 
" They can in no wise be put on the same footing as the Canonical Gos- 
pels ; they are flat and puerile amplifications based on these, and without 
value." Instead of a God we have a vulgar magician. Portent is piled 
upon portent, marvel upon marvel, and that without end. Miracle is made 



THE SON OF THE LAW. 95 

When Joseph and His mother could not find, 
As resting from their first day's journey closed, 
Him in the caravan, as they'd supposed, 
Among their kinsfolk and acquaintance, they 
Back to Jerusalem without delay 
Hasted : and after three days searching found 
Him in the Temple sitting, compassed round 

Jerusalem; and Joseph and his in the company [o-vi^od/a =" car- 
mother knew not of it. -J^But avan"], went a day's journey; 
they, supposing him to have been and they sought him among their 



cheap ; and omnipotence is brought into contempt by the frequency and 
triviality of the occasions upon which it is exercised. Divorced from use, 
made a child's puppet and plaything, employed as an instrument of boy- 
ish sport or boyish mischief, what profanation to call this the power of 
God! 

We are naturally shocked. But, it may be, no profanation was intended. 
The low ideal was in fault. The stream cannot rise higher than its source. 
What is not in the mind cannot come out of it. As is the worker so 
is his work. The masterpiece is not simply the outcome of the master, 
but is the master. The art is the artist. Apollo Belvidere, for example, 
is mind in marble. It is the superlative of him who created it. It was 
more than mere cunningness of hand that produced for the admiration of 
after ages such matchless symmetry, power and grace. The hand might 
copy but it could not create. The god has shot his arrow, and he is calmly 
watching its flight. There is the assurance and ease of superior power- 
power that costs no effort and is never exhausted. Men call it a magnifi- 
cent conception, and so it is. In sculpture it is first, and there is no 
second. Still its scope is narrow. It expresses but one thought. It is 
limited to hinting a single act. It is the god of a moment. But the rep- 
resenting of that one moment worthily has sufficed to make the author 
immortal. 

The sun-god of the Greeks is not the Sun of Righteousness. In an 
artistic sense, Jesus is more than Apollo. He is an infinitely higher concep- 



96 THEEVANGEL. 

With eager doctors hearing with surprise 
The wisdom of His questions and repHes. 

Like arrow from a bow that never missed 
Each question of the Infant Catechist ; 
The answer in the asking, keenly true. 
Like pebble from the brook which David threw — 
With certain aim, impossible to fail, 

kinsfolk and acquaintance. ^^^And that after three days they found him 

when they lound him not, they in the temple [i. e., one 0/ ike ma^ty 

turned back again to Jerusalem, kal/s and separate rooms of the 

seeking him. ^^And it came to pass " Hieron," or Temple, in the larger 



tion — grander, more complex, more difficult. Here the ideal presentment 
respects not a single attribute or act, but a character ; not a moment, but a 
life. The magnitude of the task it is impossible to exaggerate. No epic 
elevation that was ever reached approaches "the height of this great 
argument." Melodious Homer sang : 

" Achilles' wrath to Greece the direful spring 
Of woes unnumbered." 

His hero was of the vulgar type, swift of foot and large of limb. But in 
this case it is no earthly hero, but the unique, the unimagined ; a being 
descended from another sphere, having no equal and no fellow : standing 
on the apex of two natures — tlie glory and perfection of both ; a radiant 
presence in a dark world, divine in every word and act, swift to pity and 
powerful to save. To increase the marvel, we have four artists instead of 
one, each working apart ; on the mythical hypothesis, idealizing and fabling 
apart; giving to " airy nothing a local habitation and a name: " or, on 
the contrary supposition, that Christ was a real person, catching and em- 
bodying the ethereal essence of a divine life spent on the earth ; fixing the 
floating image ; and presenting, not in vague outline, but in complete 
living portraiture of form and feature, expression and color, an exact copy 
of an unparalleled original. As the artists are four, so there are four diS' 



THE SON OF THE LAW. 97 

Smiting Goliah spite his cumbrous mail — 
This simple Slinger piled upon the plain 
A huge, unwieldy bulk of falsehood slain. 

How the truth sparkled, freed from folly's gloss, 
Rabbinical impertinence and dross ! 
He as a learner sat, but taught them more 
Than their Gamaliels knew of heavenly lore, 
Though practiced in the use of all the tools 
And ponderous apparatus of the schools. 



'iense, in which judges pronounced doctors, both hearing them, and 

their decrees , and the Rabbins taught asking them questions. ^'^ And 

in their schools ; in distinction from all that heard him were aston- 

^y^^ " Naos " <?r the Sanctuary. See ished at his understanding and 

p. 31] : sitting in the midst of the answers, ^s And when they saw 

tinct portraits, which by some miraculous chance are seen to be but differ- 
ent aspects of the same divine face, and no other ; and all so powerfully 
drawn, as to make ApoUos seem cheap and Iliads poor. How came it to 
pass? Was it original genius or divine inspiration that raised the humble 
authors of the Gospels so high above a Phidias, a Homer, or a Plato? 
Each of these has been called divine, but none of their works is stamped 
with a visible signature of divinity, like those of Matthew, Mark, Luke 
and John. 

Now should any one ask. How do we know that the Gospels are not 
" cimningly devised fables," and Christ is not an invention of men? the 
answer is ready. Because, as Rousseau said long ago, " It is not thus that 
men invent ; " and, as the author of " Ecce Homo " in like manner argues, 
"The Christ of the Gospels is not mythical, for the character these por- 
tray is so pecuhar as to be altogether beyond the reach of invention both 
by individual genius, and still more by what is called 'the consciousness 
of the age.' " On the supposition there was no such person, both agree 
7 



98 THEEVANGEL. 

Simple, not subtle, full of truth and light, 
He put all pedantries at once to flight, 
By child-like words of most convincing power, 
While deep amazement ruled the passing hour. 

And when His parents, seeking everywhere, 
Astonished saw the Lost One sitting there, 
E'en mid the ecstasy of that relief. 
The Mother, mindful of her recent grief, 



him, they were amazed: and his hast thou thus dealt with us? be- 
mother said unto him, Son, why hold, thy father and I have sought 



in saying the Gospels were impossible. The last writer speaks of " tem- 
perance in the use of supernatural power as the masterpiece of Christ — a 
moral miracle." And truly we know of nothing which more strikingly 
distinguishes the Christ of the New Testament from the Christ of fable 
than this restraining of His almightiness ; making its puttings forth, so to 
speak, comparatively rare and reluctant; never wielding it for display, 
and never for His own benefit. When had it ever entered into the heart 
of man to conceive of One thus clothed with an idle omnipotence — pos- 
sessing all power, but in the spirit of a divine self-abnegation refusing to 
use it in the direst extremities ; and, when hanging in helpless agony upon 
the cross, meekly unmindful of the taunt, " He saved others ; Himself He 
cannot save ? " Rousseau is right in saying that it is not thus men invent. 
No human imagination could ever reach the miraculous fineness of such. 
an ideal. All of the four Gospels are full of divinely delicate touches 
which declare their inspiration. It is a proof unimpaired by time. Indeed 
it is not too much to say that we of this age are better qualified to feel the 
force of such evidence than were the first ages. The diamond is self- 
evincing. The question of when and where it was crystallized, who set or 
polished it, affects not its genuineness. So the Gospels. They shine by 
their own light, each with its proper lustre. They differ as one star differs 
from another star in glory. We know they are divine, whoever were the 



THE SON OF THE LAW. 99 

Could not forbear the language of reproof, 
While Joseph, less presuming, stood aloof: 

" Son! why hast Thou so dealt with us? In pain 
I and Thy father have Thee sought in vain." 

'' Why did ye seek Me, sorrowing and in doubt ? 
Did ye not know that I must be about 
My Father's business ? or seeking Me, 
Where else but at My Father's should I be?" 



thee sorrowing. ^^And he said unto Father's business [h rot- tov 
them, How is it that ye sought me ? Trarpog- fiov=:" in my Father's " i. e 
Wist ye not that I must be about my house] ? ^oAnd they understood not 



writers. That the divine light should suffer refraction in passing through 
human media was inevitable, but that does not change the element ; and 
this satisfactorily accounts for all variations. The EvangeHsts, as some- 
body remarks, "were not God's pens but penmen." 

Everything the canonical Gospels are, the apocryphal Gospels are not. 
They are the andtheses of each other. It is not resemblance but contrast. 
They represent the extremes of divine wisdom and human silliness. We 
need no Peter to tell us that Simon Magus, who offered money to buy the 
Holy Ghost, was a vulgar impostor ; and no Paul to inform us that it was 
the garrulous gossips and beldames of the chimney corner who were the 
concoctors of those "profane and old wives' fables," which make up the 
substance of the apocryphal (misnamed) Gospels. The most minute 
and characteristic and longest of these, the Arabic Gospel of the Childhood 
of Jesus — used it is supposed by Mahomet in the compilation of tfie 
Koran — has not only the same parentage as the Arabian Nights, but 
the prodigies related are just such as befit the Afrite of the lamp and the 
bottle— incredible not because they are marvellous, but because they are 
monstrous. For it is admitted that strangeness is no test of truth — 



100 THE EVANGEL. 

They understood Him not. Though conscious He 
Always of that august Paternity, 
The sacred secret He allowed to sleep, 
Nor broke the willing silence long and deep : 
In strict abeyance kept His lofty claim, 
And honored Joseph with a father's name ; 
But would not have one moment it forgot, 
God was His Father, and that he was not. 



the saying which he spake unto them, and came to Nazareth, and 
them. siAnd he went down with was subject unto them ; but Mary 



truth is strange, stranger than fiction. There are other marks by which 
" Jack the Giant Killer," the myth of the nursery, is known not to be a 
true story. 

Because there are myths, however, it does not follow there is no history. 
Strauss's boasted "apparatus for causing the miracles of the evangelic 
history to evaporate into myths," "has," to use the words of Renan, 
" been laid aside, and satisfied nobody ; " and a like fate awaits, if it has 
not already overtaken, his own "legendary hypothesis," offered as a 
substitute. For these men who deny Christ's miracles, cannot well deny 
Himself, and He is the greatest miracle of all : a mighty miracle apart 
from His miracles. If a creation, who created Him ? What greater God ? 
Or is He an effect without a cause ? Whence that influence which has 
moulded the nations and made Christendom? Is it so that this miracu- 
lous Nile, whose timely overflows continue to fertilize the world, had its 
origin in a minaculous nothing ; or, what would be still more miraculous, 
in some foul puddle of imposture not yet dried up ? Whence Christianity 
if there was no Christ ? But admitting a Christ, we must beheve either 
that He was more than man or a deceiver. Which was He, a charlatan 
or a God ? If the latter, miracles would be His most proper credentials as 
attesting His lordship over Nature as well as under it. They are logical 
and consequent. Antecedent improbabilities, upon which infidelity lays 



THE SON OF THE LAW. loi 

" Son over His own house," had they it known, 
The Temple was His Father's and His own. 
Although His mother understood not yet, 
She all these sayings in her memory set. 

" Honor thy father and thy mother! " He, 
Who thought to be God's peer not robbery, 
Emptied Himself, so far as Godhead can. 
Taking a servant's form, to bear as man 
Man's every burden. Stooped Him to obey — 



kept all these sayings in her heart. bery to be equal with God: 7But 

[Phil, ii : 6. Who, being in the made himself of jio reputation 

form of God, thought it not rob- (kavTov fA:«'6ja£'= "emptied Him- 



so much stress, are then all on the other side. An omnipotent cause must 
be equal to an omnipotent effect. To deny this is to annihilate science. 

But while Christ wrought miracles, He was no mere thaumaturgist. 
What He did was not simply wonderful — a sorcerer's trick might be that 
— but God-worthy; wholly divine, not semi-diabolic. He cast out devils, 
not by Beelzebub but with the finger of God. Scientists, credulous about 
many things, are incredulous in respect to the genuineness of Christ's 
miracles, because they were not there to see and test them. Men in those 
unscientific days, they think, might very easily be the dupes of appear- 
ances. But what is it that stamps a miracle? The chief criterion is its 
character. A miracle immoral or foolish is a contradiction in terms. It 
is impossible that such an one should bear the divine image and super- 
scription. Coming from God, it must be worthy of God. It must have 
function and use. It must articulate and move in harmony with the 
hinges and joints of a compagination, which is likewise of God. To 
dislocate it, to tear it from its connections, and view it apart, is as absurd 
as to treat the spring of a watch m that manner. A miracle is a truth as 
well as a fact ; and scientists, if they want to test Christ's miracles, can 



102 THE EVANGEL. 

Becoming subject to the very clay 

His hands had fashioned. Wrought from sun to sun. 

Whatever was commanded to be done 

That doing. Toiling, not despising toil : 

Though purity itself, not shunning soil 

And sweat of daily labor : not afraid 

Of the hard drudgery of a humble trade. 

Honoring work by work. Observing awe ; 

And by obedience magnifying law. 

And He went down with them to Nazareth, 
And subject was. So much the record saith. 



self") and took upon him the form Even as the Son of man came noi 
of a servant, and was made in the to be ministered unto, but to min- 
likeness of men. Matth. xx : 28. ister, and to give his hfe a ransom 



test them now as well as then. The miracles are present if the author is 
not. There might be trick and they be not able to detect it ; but there is 
no room for deception in regard to the diviner half — the character — which 
infallibly distinguishes between the genuine and the spurious. One might 
as easily confound the oracular gems on the breast-plate of Aaron with 
dull bits of glass or pebbles by the road-side. Christ proves His miracles, 
and His miracles prove Him. 

To feign a miracle may seem easy, but it is not ; for every true miracle 
requires a just setting. The occasion must be a proper one, the reason 
sufficient, and the worker competent and accredited. A divine interven- 
tion is only justified by a necessity — " Nee Deus intersit nisi dignus vin- 
dice nodus " — a useless miracle were an indecency and an outrage. If 
the kingdom of Nature is to suffer violence, it must be a holy violence, 
directed by divine wisdom to a divine end. To create the exigency which 



THE SON OF THE LAW. 103 

The veil one moment lifted falls again. 

But better far, than fables men have feigned, 

The untold story, save as He began 

He grew in favor both with God and man. 



for many. Matth. xiii : 55. Is not gymnaze or train] thyself rather 

this the carpenter's son ? Mark vi : unto godhness. 2 Tim. iv : 3. For the 

8. Is not this the carpenter ? time will come when they will not 

52 And Jesus increased in wisdom endure sound doctrine: but after 

and stature, and in favor with God their own lusts shall heap to them- 

and man, selves teachers, having itching ears; 

[i Tim. iv : 7. But refuse profane •* And they shall turn away their ears 

and old wives' fables [//vT^otig- = from the truth, and shall be turned 

myths] and exercise \.yviiva(,t = unto fables— //lii^our = myths.] 



would make a miracle proper is beyond the reach of human invention. 
Certain it is, that all attempts, ancient and modern, at miracle-making no 
less than at God-making, have been profane and miserable failures ; and 
it is not without good grounds that we dare to characterize all apocryphal 
and legendary addenda to the miracles of the New Testament, of which 
we have any knowledge, as alike foolish and blasphemous. Falsehood can 
in no case be complemental to truth — the conjunction is always monstrous. 
Christ is complete and sufficient as He is. He does not stand in need of 
either infidel apology or infidel panegyric ; and until we have better proof 
than we have yet had of infidel ability to make a better one, we beg leave 
to chng to the old. Strauss is already obsolete. Renan is obsolescent. 
Sneering scientists of to-day will be forgotten to-morrow. But Jesus lives 
forever. 



s 



X. 

THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS, 

UNK in the silence of th' unwritten years 
The stream of history once more appears. 
Meanwhile he slept who kept the world awake : 
Impartial death would no denial take 
From Rome's proud Emperor — Augustus dead, 
Tiberius Ca:isar ruled the world instead. 



Now in the fifteenth year of his bad reign — 
What time the wretch was crying out in pain ; ^ 
When Pontius Pilate, procurator, sway 

Luke iii : i. Now in the fifteenth Judea, and Herod [Antipas] being 
year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother 
Pontius Pilate being governor of [Herod] Philip tetrarch of Ituraea, 



* It was about this time that Tiberius left Rome, never to return, 
although he continued to reign eleven years longer, during which he 
practiced the most revolting cruelties, and plunged into the most infamous 
excesses. According to Pliny, he became "the most wretched of men." 
In a letter sent to the Roman Senate, preserved by Tacitus, he begins by 
saying, " What to write, or how to write, may all the gods and goddesses 
torment me more than I daily feel that I am suffering, if I know." 



THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. 10$ 

Held o'er Judea and Samaria ; 

And Herod Antipas reigned foxily" 

Over the tetrarchy of Galilee ; 

Philip, like Antipas, a Jewish Prince — 

Under like title holding, ever since 

Their father's death, by royal testament 

Sealed with the Roman Emperor's consent — 

Ruled o'er the Transjordanic tetrarchy 

Of Iturea, and, what anciently 

Was Argob, Trachonitis, farther east ; — 

Annas with Caiaphas being then high priest — 

Came John the Baptist, preaching as he went 
In the Judean wilderness, " Repent ! 
The Reign of Heaven approaches. Turn from sin, 
And a new life of righteousness begin ! " 



and of the region of Trachonitis.f high priests, the word of God came 
and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abi- unto John the son of Zacharias, in 
lene, -Annas and Caiaphas being the the wilderness, sAnd he came into 



* Luke xiii : 32. 

t Trachonitis [Tpaxo)viTLg-=" a rough or rocky place"] is the same as 
ancient Argob, wh^ch also means " stony." It is described as an extraor. 
dinary region, oval in shape, shattered and rent, and covered over with 
basaltic rocks and boulders, tossed about in the wildest confusion. It lay 
east of the Jordan in Bashan, forming a part ot the kingdom o! Og, and 
in the time of Joshua contained sixty great and fornfipd cities. Deut. iii : 4. 



I06 THE EVANGEL. 

A coat of camel's hair, the only dress 
Of this great prophet of the wilderness, 
With leathern girdle bound, his feet all bare; 
Locusts and honey of the woods his fare : 
But spite these outward signs of poverty. 
Of woman born no greater one than he ; 



allthecountry about Jordan, preach- crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye 

ing the baptism of repentance,* the way of the Lord [//"^^J. Jehovah], 

[//£ravolacr= " after knowledge," make his paths straight. sEveryval- 

" change of mind," " reformation "] ley shall be filled, and every moun- 

for the remission of sins ; -tAs it is tain and hill shall be brought low ; 

written in the book of Esaias the and the crooked shall be made 

prophet, saying. The voice of one straight, and the rough ways shall be 



* Exception has been taken, not without reason, to the inadequacy, not 
to say impropriety, of the rendering of the Greek original, jLteruvoca, meta- 
noia, by "repentance." Undeniably the Greek metanola, and the Latin 
pcenitentia, whence comes " repentance," differ widely in their etymologi- 
cal import. For while the root-meaning in the one case is "change of 
mind," in the other it \s pcena or punishment. Although this idea of pen- 
alty or inflicted pain has been allowed to drop out of the word " repent- 
ance," it is still carefully preserved in its Romish equivalent " penance ;" 
and it might be instructive to inquire how far the lurking infection of a 
sense so foreign to the pure original, and so radically misleading, operat- 
ing as a corrupting leaven, has served to falsify Christianity by making it, 
instead of "joy and peace in believing," a prescription of pain — a cruel 
despotism of gratuitous and senseless suffering, commending and com- 
manding it, on the delusive ground that peculiar merit attaches to self- 
inflicted torture, voluntary macerations, lacerations, manglings and mar- 
rings of the flesh, all the lingering torments of a slow suicide — the greater 
the agony the greater being the merit, as if God delighted in pain for its 
own sake and loved to trade in human groans, rating* them as precious, 
and accepting them as the golden coin of payment and purchase in the 
grand bargain of salvation. 

If repentance now is not pain in this gross sense, still it is pain. Pain is its 



THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. IO7 

Than he no greater prophet ; honored more 
Than all the prophets that had gone before — 
Being that Voice, of whom Isaiah spake, 
The herald of Jehovah, that should break 

made smooth; sAnd all flesh shall John the Baptist, preaching in the 

see the salvation of God. wilderness of Judea, 2And saying, 

[Matth. iii : I. In those days came Repent ye ! (MeravoeZre "Reform 

essence ; only it is of the mind and not of the body. Its nature is feehng, 
feehng which may issue in purpose and act, but not necessarily. It may 
go forward or it may stand still. It may lead to a " change of mind," or 
stop short of it. It answers to the Greek fceTafieXeLa, metameleia, rather 
than nerdvoca, vietanoia. For this it lacks ampHtude. It fails to declare 
the whole counsel of God. To repent is not enough. Judas repented, 
and then went and hung himself. In his case it was metameleia, denoting 
a change of feehng, regret, remorse, not metanoia, change of mind, a moral 
change, a turning from evil to good. Campbell remarks that " where this 
change of mind is inculcated as a duty, or the necessity of it mentioned as 
a doctrine of Christianity, the terms are invariably fiETavoeu, metanoeo, 
and fxerdvoca, metanoia. But when such sorrow is alluded to, as is either 
not productive of reformation, or, in the nature of the thing, does not 
imply it, they are never used." 

There is repentance in the sense of metavielia — that is, remorse ; bitter, 
unavaihng regret— among the lost ; but an insusceptibility to repentance 
in the sense of metanoia, constitutes one of the distinguishing marks of 
reprobation, according to Rom. ii : 5, "But after thy hardness and im- 
penitent heart yajn^ravoriTOv KnnSiav, ametanoeeton kardian, i. e. incorri- 
gible, irreclaimable, unreformable heart], thou treasures! up unto thyself 
wrath against the day of wrath." 

In a case where the inspired original, in its employment of two words, 
carefully and always distinguishes between them, it surely cannot be con- 
sidered otherwise 'than a grave fault in a translation when it constantly 
confounds their meanings, and obliterates all distinction, as the Enghsh 
version, following the Vulgate, does, in relation to metaneo and metame- 
lomai, by rendering them indiscriminately " Repent." 

A good example of the confusion arising from this cause is found 2 Cor. 



ro8 THE EVANGEL. 

The stillness of the desert far and wide, 
And silence of the centuries beside, 
What time the oracle of God was dumb :'^ 

'* Behold He cometh ! He that was to come 
Is coming. Hark ! His chariots are near. 
The rumbling of their swift approach I hear. 
Prepare His way ! Make straight, make smooth 
His road : 



ye!" " Live a new life ! "] for the of one crying in the wilderness, 

kingdom of heaven is at hand. ^For Prepare the way of the Lord, make 

this is he that was spoken of by the his paths straight, -lAnd the same 

prophet Esaias, saying, The voice John had his raiment of camel's 



vii : lo, where the two words occur in immediate connection : " For godly 
sorrow [Xyn^, lupee\ worketh repentance {jizravoiav, metanoian^ to salva- 
tion not to be repented of {aixtrafiEkriTov, ametaleeton\ " — which is tanta- 
mount to saying " For godly sorrow worketh godly sorrow [this being the 
accepted meaning of repentance] to salvation not to be sorrowed for." 
In the Greek there is none of this tautology and play upon words. In the 
translation one English word is made to perform the office of two different 
words in the original. This may serve simplicity, but it sadly darkens the 
sense. Give to each Greek word its proper force, and the meaning is 
clear. " Godly sorrow worketh a divine reformation [effectual] to salva- 
tion, not regretable," it being impossible that there should be any change 
of feeling or desire in regard to it, the thing wrought being too blessed 
for that. There is fore-sorrow, pain attendant on the bringing forth ; but 
no after-sorrow. So, too, Rom. xi : 29, we read : The gifts and calling of 
God are without repentance {a^eTaii£7.riTa, atnetameleetd], that is to say, 

* From Malachi, the last of the prophets, to John it was four hundred 
years. 



THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. IO9 

He comes ! He comes ! the Anointed One of God. 
Uplift hosannahs ! Welcomings accord ! 
Cast up, cast up a highway for the Lord ! 
Take your rebelHous wills out of the way, 
And whatsoever can His coming stay ! 
Fill up the mire of lusts, the pit of lies ! 
Level the mountains, let the valleys rise ! 
See you these deep and dreadful ruts of sin ? 



hair, and a leathern girdle about his eAnd were baptized of him in Jor- 

loins ; and his meat was locusts and dan, confessii% their sins, 

wild honey. ^Then went out to him [Mark i : i. The beginning of 

Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son 

the region round about Jordan, of God ; 2As it is written in the 



are without regret, or change of purpose on God's part; hence immuta- 
ble, irrevocable. In this sense the word is used Heb. vii : 21 : The Lord 
hath sworn zxi^ivill not repent \ov [lerau.eArjdrjGETai, on inetameleetheesetai'\, 
that is, not alter his purpose. In the three remaining places in the New 
Testament where the word occurs (Matth. xxi : 29, 32 ; and xxvii : 3 — this 
last referring to the repentance of Judas) the same important distinction 
of meaning is kept up, that of a simple change of feeling or purpose in 
regard to some one thing, without respect to the motive or character of the 
change, whether good or bad ; whereas it is of the very essence of the 
change expressed by metanoeo and metanoia in all the fifty-eight places 
where they are met with in the New Testament, that the change is from 
evil to good, not in reference to a single act only, but the whole life, 
constituting a lasting and thorough reformation. Sorrow does not enter 
into the words except by implication, hence the desirableness of finding, if 
we could, some better equivalent for them than " Repent " and " Repent- 
ance." It is true that by means of Christian accretions supplementing 
what is lacking, " Repent ye" has come to mean nearly the same as 
" Reform ye," which is George Campbell's rendering; or "Amend your 
lives," which is the Genevan version ; or " Resipiscite," which is Beza's ; 



110 THE EVANGEL. 

Would you His chariot wheels should run therein ? 
Break off your sins by righteousness, each one ! 
For none is ready till that work is done." 

Filled all the land that proclamation loud ; 
And there went out to him a numerous crowd, 
On camels or afoot, to see and hear — 
From villages and cities far and near, 

prophets, Behold, I send my mes- voice of one crying in the wilder- 
senger before thy face, which shall ness, Prepare ye the way of the 
prepare the way befofe thee, s'fhe Lord, make his paths straight.] 

and now it admits of doubt whether, if it were practicable, it would be 
desirable to substitute other words more critically exact. These have been 
hallowed by so long use, and become so deeply imbedded in all Christian 
literature and speech, that the attempt to unsettle them at this late day 
would seem almost like assailing the foundations of the language. Since, 
however, if retained, they are to be interpreted in a sense other than their 
own, one gathered from the Greek originals, a further analysis of these 
may not be amiss in order to get at their precise import. 

MerauoLa, metanoia, is compounded of fiera, meta, "after," and I'oeo;, 
" to perceive." As metamorphosis means transformation, or change of 
form, so metanoia means " transmentation," or change of mind or percep- 
tion. Beza, however, would seem to have derived it from meta " after, " 
and anola, "want of mind," or "folly." Hence his " Resipiscentia, " 
meaning a change from folly to wisdom, a return to a sane state of mind. 
Archbishop Trench says: " Mera^oeiv, inetanoein, is properly to know 
after, as ixpovoziv, pronoein, to know before ; and [isTavoia, metanoia, 
rty?^r-knowledge, as npovoca, pronoia, _;^r^-knowledge, whence comes 
change of mind and then change of conduct. ... In the New Testa- 
ment metanoeln and metanoia are never used in other than an ethical 
sense." 

The law and the prophets were until John. His preaching was the 
beginning of the Gospel. " Metanoieite ! Repent ye ! Reform ! Live a 



THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. Ill 

Jerusalem, and the extremest bound 
Of all Judea, and the country round 
The Jordan — who, by his entreaties won, 
Their sins confessing, were baptized of John. 
But when he saw, with keen detective glance, 
The Sadducees and Pharisees advance 
In numbers to his baptism, full of guile 
And serpent subtlety and hate the while. 
He sternly said : " O brood of vipers ! who 

Luke iii : 7. Then said he to the [Matth. iii : 7. But when he saw 

multitude that came forth to be bap- many of the Pharisees and Saddu- 

tizedof him, O generation of vipers, cees come to his baptism, he said, 

who hath warned [v7Te6£L^£V=" in- O generation of vipers, who hath 

dicated to" (?r "prompted"] you to warned you to flee from the wrath 

flee from the wrath to come ? to come ? 



new life ! for the kingdom of heaven is at hand ! " These initial words 
were words of grace. They belonged to the Gospel and not the Law. It 
is unjust to characterize John as harsh and legal. He was neither. Kinder 
words, tones more tender or loving had never wooed the ears of men. It 
was Mercy's voice that cried in the wilderness. In no case, if the prophet 
is not sterner than the truth, is he stern at all. Truth is love. If John 
had not loved Herod, he would not have rebuked him. His love made 
him daring. His love cost him his life. Well did our Lord say of him, 
"Among them that are born of woman, there hath not arisen a greater 
than John the Baptist." What nobility of nature ! What magnanimity ! 
What modesty! What sincerity! What honesty! "I am not the 
Christ." " I am not worthy to loose the latchet of His shoes." " Behold 
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." "He must 
increase, I must decrease." 

As Christ's forerunner John was great as the greatest of the prophets ; 
but as Christ's liegeman he was greater still, even though he were " the 
least in the kingdom of heaven." It will be seen that we take it for 



M2 THEEVANGEL. 

To flee the coming wrath hath prompted you ? 
What faithful mouth hath made your guilt appear, 
And thundered vengeance in your startled ear? 
Denounced the warning of that closing verse — 
The Lord will come and smite you with a curse 
Unless before that great and dreadful day 
You turn from sin and cast your pride away? 
You seek my baptism, puffed with the conceit 
That you the Undeceivable can cheat. 

Mai. iv : 5. Behold, I will send ran, and the heart of the children to 

you Elijah the prophet before the their fathers, lest I come and smite 

coming of the great and dreadful the earth with a curse. End of the 

day of the Lord : ^ And he shall turn Old Testament.'] 

the heart of the fathers to the child- i^Bring forth therefore fruits wor- 



granted, that John was himself in and not outside of the kingdom he 
helped to inaugurate — feehng sure that " he who was a trumpet to sound 
a march to others did not secretly sound a retreat to himself." This were 
most unhke him. Beyond all doubt he who took part in the consecrating 
act of baptism, and witnessed the regal anointing of the Holy Ghost 
that followed, withheld not instant liomage and vows of loyal service to the 
Saviour-King. Of what quahfication was he destitute that the door ot 
the Kingdom should be closed to him more than to others ? He clearly 
had Faith and of the right sort. We hear him saying to two of his own 
disciples, John and Andrew, " Behold the Lamb of God ! " Were these 
admitted and the master excluded ? Surely Christ's words have been 
misunderstood. Their meaning could not have been that John was per- 
sonally inferior to the least or greatest of his believing contemporaries ; 
but only, that the power and privilege appertaining to the meanest place 
in Christ's kingdom were grander and higher than any official dignity, 
even the highest and most sacred, outside of it. 

John's disciples were " born of water." His baptism symbolized a new 
birth, or a great moral change, having respect more especially to the out- 



THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. 1 13 

Your ends are sinister. Go ! get you hence ! 

Produce the proper fruits of penitence ! 

Think not because that you are Abraham's seed, 

That you no further preparation need. 

Messiah's kingdom is not what you deem. 

You think Heaven needs you— 'tis an idle dream. 

God, if He pleased, could of these stones upraise 

A chosen generation to His praise. 

You brag and boast yourselves, and patronize 

Your outraged Maker, and His laws despise. 

thy of repentance, and begin not to unto you, That God is able of these 
say within yourselves. We have stones to raise up children unto 
Abraham to our father: for I say Abraham. ^And now also the axe 

ward life, hence called " the baptism of repentance [reformation] for the 
remission of sins." This was much but it was not enough. Another 
birth was necessary, the birth of the Spirit. " Except a man be born of 
water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." The 
last was to be Christ's supreme work. " He shall baptize you with the 
Holy Ghost and with fire." The moral change takes place on a natural 
plane, and belongs to " the earthly things ;" the other on a supernatural, 
and relates to the "heavenly things," of which Christ spake to Nicode- 
mus. This " ruler of the Jews " had fondly imagined that the simple fact 
of having Abraham to their father, made all Jews citizens of Messiah's 
kingdom. In respect to Gentiles, it was easy to understand how it should 
be necessary that there should be some rite of initiation, some ceremony 
of citizenship, some oath (sacrament) of allegiance. But why should a 
native-born need to be born again ; and not only twice but thrice born, in 
order to become a subject ? 

Nicodemus undoubtedly shared in the prevailing belief that " the King- 
dom of God" which had been prophesied by Daniel, was to be a secular 
kingdom, and a Jewish one at that. So universal and so difficult of erad- 



114 THE EVANGEL. 

You do not condescend to beg, but claim ; 
And flaunt before His face your rags of shame: 
So strongly works within th' infernal leaven, 
That Heav'n must stoop to you, not you to Heav'n. 
Reform ! Put off your proud self-righteousness ! 
Ye Sadducees and Pharisees, confess 
None are so vile as you ! Do not deny 
Your sleek respectability's a lie ! 

is laid unto the root of the trees : not forth good fruit is hewn down, 
every tree therefore which bringeth and cast into the fire. ^^And the 

ication was this national prejudice, that even Christ's chosen disciples 
could not rise superior to it ; but, crass and unreceptive to the last, still 
" trusted that it had been He who should have redeemed Israel " (Luke 
xxiv : 2i), notwithstanding Christ's explicit denial ; the plain contradiction 
contained in the name, (for if the kingdom was of heaven how could it be 
of earth ?) and the manifest impossibility of founding a true Theocracy 
in a world lying in wickedness, on any other basis than that of a separation 
of those converted to its authority, since to all others it must of necessity 
be no better than a nullity. Even tlie old Theocracy, which was the sha- 
dow of one rather than the reality, involved this separation ; and was not 
improperly therefore denominated an Ecclesia \^from ek, " out of ," and 
KaXcu, " to call " ] ; because, beginning with the Call and Election of 
Abraham, it became under Moses a divine authoritative " Calling out," and 
" Calling together," and organizing into a nation a particular and distinct 
people — typical of that true Theocracy of which Christ, 6 iravTOKgdruQ, 
[Rev. i : 8] was to be the adorable Head ; and believers, gathered alike from 
Jews and Gentiles, the only rightful subjects. The sifting Call, beginning 
with John, was continued under Christ, whose Fan was in His hand to 
winnow and gather. And as this sifting out and gathering together 
was the most characteristic feature of the new organization, it is not sur- 
prising that the name Ecclesia (Church, Congregation, Assembly, Society, 
otherwise a Body divinely summoned and organized), should subsequently 
become a synonym and frequent substitute for the title of the Kingdom of 



THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. 1 15 

Unmask, and show the rottenness within, 

Your unrepentant hoariness in sin ! 

And now the axe is ready at the root, 

So, every tree which brings not forth good fruit 

Shall be hewn down and cast into the fire." 

And when the people hastened to inquire, 

'' What shall we do ? " - Divide," he answering said, 

" Who have, with those who have not, clothes and 
bread ! 

people asked him. saying. What two coats let him impart to him that 
shall we do then ? " He answereth hath none ; and he thaf hath meat 
and saith unto them. He that hath let him do likewise. 12 Then came 

Heaven; or rather, since there is more than one Ecclesia and but one 
Kingdom-that each Ecclesia should come to stand for an integral part of 
the one great Christian Commonwealth and Universal Brotherhood 

"Born of water" cannot mean that the begetting power was in the 
water of baptism, for the " Repentance" had already been effected before 
the water was applied, and constituted the prerequisite, just as " Faith " 
was made a condition precedent at a later period. In the one case, it was 
" Brmg forth fruits meet for repentance ;" in the other, it was " If thou 
behevest with all thy heart thou mayest." As Faith associated with Re- 
pentance could not fail to exercise a modifying influence on the latter 
impartmg to it. so to speak, a new and nobler character, by elevatincr iJ 
from the moral plane to the spiritual, there is reason to believe that "the 
life of repentance under Christ's preaching was a " more abundant hfe " 
than that under John's. Schleiermacher remarks : " When Christ com- 
mands repentance. He does it with a powerful word, to which the act is 
not lacking. This word which commands repentance, and which, properly 
•speakmg. creates the new spiritual world, since every one comes into 
existence there through repentance alone, is just as powerful and effectual 
as the commanding word which summoned into existence the world around 
us." This is finely said ; but the language would apply equally well to 



Il6 THE EVANGEL. 

Care for your neighbour! Here reform begins ; 
For selfishness includes all other sins." 

Then when the publicans — whose odious trade 
Was to collect the tax the Caesars laid — 
Coming for baptism, asked what they should do : 
" Exact no more than is appointed you : 
Do not increase men's burdens, hard at best, 
Grow rich by fraud, and robbery of th' opprest." 

also publicans to be baptized, and do ? i"> And he said unto them, Ex- 
said unto him, Master, what shall we act no more than that which is ap- 

Faith as to Repentance. That divine change which we call Regeneration 
includes both. Both are essential. Admitting, as we must, that under 
the fuller hght of Christ's teaching, and the accompanying power of the 
Holy Ghost, Repentance is a mightier and diviner Reformation than 
that which John preached, still a part is not the whole, and it is better to 
confine words to their proper sphere, otherwise we annihilate all distinc- 
tion. It was, to be sure, inevitable, that as " Christ came that we might 
have life, and have it more abundantly," words and symbols should, under 
His ministry, receive new meanings or invigorations of old ones, to meet 
the exigency of diviner facts and experiences. 

As John's Baptism was the Baptism of Reformation, so Christ's was 
the Baptism of Regeneration. Both were water baptisms. There was 
no change of the symbol ; but instead of its representing now an outer 
washing merely, and a new behavior — the washing of reformation — it 
came to symbolize an inner washing as well, and a new life — " the wash- 
ing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost." When afterward — 
at first by an innocent metonomy, the commonest of all figures of speech — 
the sign would sometimes be used for the thing signified, men, strange to 
say (and not unfortunately in this case alone), mistaking rhetoric for 
reality, in process of time came to believe, that Baptism did not represent 
but was Regeneration ; and in hke manner that the bread and wine of the 
Eucharist were the real flesh and blood of our Lord. In the words of old 



THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. II7 

Next, when the soldiers — hirehngs of Rome, 
Spies and informers, terror of the home, 
Outrageous, insolent, and often worse, 
Compelling tribute for their private purse — 
Came and demanded what to them belong : 
" Do violence to none ! nor any wrong 
By charges false, on gain or vengeance bent ! 
But with your proper wages be content ! " 

pointed you, ''■' And the soldiers unto them, Do violence to no man, 
likewise demanded of him, saying, neither accuse any falsely ; and be 
And what shall we do ? And he said content with your wages. ^^ And as 



Fuller: "What damage hath unwary rhetoric not done to rehgion ! Many 
an innocent reader hath taken Damascene and Theophylact at their word, 
counting their eloquent hyperboles of Christ's presence in the sacrament 
the exact standards of their judgment, whence after ages brought in 
transubstantiation. Yea, from the Fathers' elegant apostrophes to the 
dead (lively pictures by hasty eyes may be taken for living persons) pray- 
ers to saints took their original." 

Symbol is similitude ; it is also a creed. Baptism is a symbol in both 
senses. While its divinely-ordered many-sidedness fitted it to reflect, like 
so many mirrors, different phases of Christian life and doctrine, its pre- 
vised roominess enabled it to receive from time to time new meanings to 
meet the added requirements of a growing revelation, whereby in the end 
It became crowded and packed with a sacred significance — a most preg- 
nant hieroglyph expressive of the chief cardinal truths and most central 
facts of the Christian rehgion. It meant purification. It meant reforma- 
tion. It meant consecration. It meant initiation and citizenship. It 
meant witnessing and the answer of a good conscience. It,meant regen- 
eration. It meant burial. It meant resurrection. It expressed hkeness 
to these ; and behef in these. Of course it was not these, only the image 
of these. We may call a picture a person but it is not a person. Every 
child ought to be able to distinguish between figure and fact. 

Besides these, forming what may be called the sacramental uses of the 



Il8 THE EVANGEL. 

As all in wondering expectation wait, 
And query in their hearts and hold debate, 
If John be the Messiah, he replies : 
" Nay! I, indeed, in water you baptize — 
A sign of outward cleansing, looking to 
A change of mind, a moral change in you — 
But change of mind is not a change of heart ; 
Birth to reform is only birth in part. 
Mine is a ministry of weakness He 
Who Cometh is in power and dignity 

the people were in expectation, and or not; '^John answered, saying 
all men mused in their hearts of unto them all, I indeed baptize you 
John, whether he were the Christ, with water ; but one mightier than 

term, there are other Baptisms, where water is not the element — the Bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost, the Baptism of Fire, and the Baptism of Suffer- 
ing. These are plainly mystical or metaphorical baptisms, based on 
similitudes suggestive of power and abundance. The first expressed the 
overwhelming influence of the Holy Spirit under which men spake with 
tongues on the day of Pentecost. It formed a miracle of proof; an 
attestation incontrovertibly divine, and so mighty to convince ; but it is 
doubtful, amazing as it was, whether that ordinary and normal measure 
of the Spirit — which is freely given to all who ask — powerful to regen- 
erate, but without supernatural accompaniments — is not more to be 
desired as more necessary. The second, we must believe (seeing the 
object of Christ's coming was not to condemn the world), means a fire of 
doctrine, an enveloping, searching and testing flame, whose gracious 
design is ah^ays purification, and not punishment except to the incorri- 
gible ; and which though grievous at the time is joyous afterward. Strictly 
speaking, the fire of punishment is always a fire of the sinner's own kind- 
ling — an effect of which he is the cause. The last, referring primarily to 
Christ's sufferings, is an apt name for the immeasurable and mysterious 
agonies of the garden and the cross. 



THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. 



119 



Far mightier and worthier ; whose shoes 
I may not carry, nor their latchet loose — 
The Lord Plenipotent ! He shall baptize 
You in the Spirit, and in fire likewise — 
Spirit of miracle and birth divine. 

And fire of God to try you and refine 

Whose fan is m His hand ; and he will lift. 
And winnow you ; and thoroughly will sift 
And purge His floor ; and garner will the wheat, 
But will the chaff consume with quenchless heat. 



I Cometh, the latchet of whose shoes 
I am not worthy to unloose : he shall 
baptize you with the Holy Ghost 
and with fire : 1^ Whose fan is in his 
hand, and he will thoroughly purge 
his floor, and will gather the wheat 
into his garner ; but the chaff he 
will burn with fire unquenchable. 
'8 And many other things in his 
exhortation preached he unto the 
people. 

[Mai. iii : i. Behold, I will send 
my messenger, and he shall prepare 
the way before me : and the Lord 
whom ye .seek, shall suddenly come 



to his temple, even the messenger 
of the covenant, whom ye delight 
in : behold, he shall come, saith the 
Lord of hosts. ^But who may abide 
the day of his coming ? and who 
shall stand when he appeareth ? foi 
he is like a refiner's fire, and like 
fuller's soap : sAnd he shall sit as a 
refiner and purifier of silver : and 
he shall purify the sons of Levi, and 
purge them as gold and silver, that 
they may offer up unto the Lord an 
offering in righteousness. 

Heb. xii : 29. For our God is a 
consuming fire.] 



X 1. 



THE BAPTISM. 

\ T the ripe moment, like the punctual sun 
^ -^ Not slow nor making haste, then Jesus — One 
On whom the ages wait, for whom the spheres 
Make willing circuits, after thirty years 
What time was veiled His Godhead, having grown 
From infancy to manhood all unknown — 
Leaving His home at Nazareth, journeys on 
From Galilee to Jordan unto John, 
To be baptized of him. 

Before the sign 
Authenticating Him with seal divine, 
John knew Him not^ — permitted not to know, 

Matth, iii : 13. Then cometh Jesus to be baptized of him. [John i : 31. 
from Galilee to Jordan unto John And I knew him not : but, that he 



* John's declaration, "I knew Him not" (John i : 31, 32), no more 
means that he was ignorant of the person and character of Jesus, than the 
profession, "I never knew you," Matth. vii : 23 ; "I know you not," 
Matth. XXV : 12; "I know not whence ye are," Luke xiii : 25, 27, means 



THE BAPTISM. 121 

To recognize Him publicly, although 
He always knew Him ; but however sure, 
He might not, by disclosure premature 
And haste indecent. Heaven anticipate, 
When He was patient and content to wait. 
'Twas not enough he knew the secret well, 



should be made manifest to Israel, water. 32And John bare record, 
therefore am I come baptizing with saying, I saw the Spirit descending 



that the Omniscient Judge is ignorant of the persons and characters of 
those upon whom He passes sentence. On the contrary, paradoxical as 
it may sound, He knew them not because He knew them. He never 
recognized them as His, because they were not His. In like manner John 
did not know Jesus — did not recognize or divulge Him as the Messiah 
until he had received the promised sign after His baptism. To have done 
so would have been premature and unauthorized. 

John was ro Jesus as a scaffold to a. building, a preface to a book, a 
sign-post to a road. His whole raison d''etre lay in Him. " He was not 
that Light, but came to bear witness of that Light." But before he could 
be qualified to act in the capacity of an original witness, it seems indis- 
pensable that he should have direct, supernatural, sensible proof of His 
Messiahship, instead of being dependent upon second-hand testimony in 
regard to miraculous events of thirty years before. This might avail, and 
no doubt did, for private conviction and assurance, taken in connection 
with what he personally knew of His character. The strong language 
used by him before the baptism indicates the posidveness o*f his own 
belief. But it is a fine proof of the Divine carefulness that John was not 
permitted to assume or take anything for granted, but was required to 
wait for the credentials of a divine attestation before he bore public wit- 
ness. He knew Him, therefore, as if he knew Him not. He strictly 
respected His incognito. Whether there was a divine injunction to that 
effect is not stated, but it seems likely. Even His own mother, we infer, 
did not feel herself at liberty to repeat what she had heard and knew, " but 
kept \pvvzTriqzi^ " preserved " — hid away in some safe and sacred crypt 
of memory, under the guard and seal of a close silence] all these things, 



122 THE EVANGEL. 

Had heard his wondering parents often tell 
The story of His birth, and had no doubt : 
Prophet and witness, sent to point Him out, 
'Twas fit, besides tradition and report, 
He should have proof of a directer sort, 



from heaven like a dove, and it not : but he that sent me to baptize 
abode upon him. 33And I knew him with water, the same said unto me, 



and pondered them [cri;^/?a?i,/ioDcra= symbolized or formulated them, so 
to speak— put this and that together, trying to spell out the full meaning, 
only half divining the mighty mystery] in her heart." Objects maybe too 
close to the eye for clearness of vision. How far this law may have oper- 
ated in Mary's case it is difficult to say. But it is certain that there was a 
sense in which she likewise knew Him not, and that too the truest ; for 
we are told, " No man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither any man 
knoweth the Father save the Son." Matth. xi : 27. 

Furthermore, we run no risk in saying, that John's knowledge of the 
purport and purpose of his own iTaptism was partial and imperfect. He 
knew in general that its design was that " the Messiah [not Jesus expressly 
and by name] should be made manifest unto Israel." But he could not 
have known beforehand that the descent of the Holy Ghost, making Him 
manifest first to himself, would take place in connection with the adminis- 
tration of the rite, otherwise he would not have offered objections to bap- 
tizing Jesus. He probably in the outset saw the symbol only under one 
or at most two of its many aspects. It typified purity, and purity meant 
preparation pointing to the coming Christ. This much he saw. 

But the rite to him must have been invested with a new and grander 
significance afterward, when in the baptism of Jesus he found he had 
been unconsciously assisting in an august ceremonial of consecration after 
the manner prescribed in Lev. viii : 6-12, at which directly and visibly God 
anointed ]es\\s of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost (Acts x : 38), constituting 
Him " The Christ," and inaugurating Him perpetual " High Priest," with 
a new accompanying asseveration, "Thou art my Son, to-day have I 
begotten Thee," Heb, v : 5 — the same as when He brought Him, His 
First Begotten [ttputotokov] into the world,'' Heb. i : 5, 6 ; and again 
when He raised Him up from the dead. Acts xiii : 33. These words of 



THE BAPTISiM. 1 23 

And, till th' Anointing Spirit should be given, 
Fear to divulge Him as the Christ of Heaven. 

Meanwhile he knew and knew Him not, but saw, 
With holy wonder and adoring awe, 
Such proofs of hidings of divinity, 
As made him sure it could be none but He: 



Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit the same is he which baptizeth with 
descending, and remaining on him, the Holy Ghost. 34And I saw, and 



the Father (which it would be absurd to understand in a strict chrono- 
logical genetic or ontological sense, for we know the Eternal Son, the 
First Begotten in a sense transcending all analogy, was neither " to-day " 
nor ever " begotten " in the sense of being brought into existence) are to 
be received with " a latitude," to borrow the language of Lord Bacon, 
" which is agreeable and familiar unto the divine prophecies, being of the 
nature of their Author, with whom a thousand years are but as one day " — 
and so, instead of being confined to one fulfilment, had " springing and 
germinant accomplishments," answering, in this case, to divine begettings, 
so to speak, not only in the womb of Mary, but the womb of baptism and 
the womb of the grave — denoting thereby natal epochs of mighty transi- 
tion, like the beginning of a new life — this multiple application serving to 
preclude any grossly literal interpretation for which, if their use had been 
limited to one time or occasion, there might have been room. 

Actor and spectator, instructed by all he had witnessed, thrilled with the 
mystery, and awed by the majesty of the occasion, the eye of the wonder- 
ing Baptist even then, we must believe, did not take in the full sweep of 
the divine meaning of that representative scene at one of the fords of the 
Jordan. He did not see what Christ plainly saw, in the act of His own 
baptism, and seeing shrunk not back — the prediction and the pledge of a 
stupendous fulfilment of all righteousness, reaching to every jot and tittle 
of the Mosaic law and ritual, and embracing every form of minute observ- 
ance, service and sacrifice, to the end that as in Adam all died, and repre- 
sentatively again in Israel, once baptized provisionally unto Moses in the 
cloud and in the sea, all came into condemnation, so in Christ by a voluntary 



124 THE EVANGEL. 

Ev'n as the jeweler at once descries 

The diamond, undiscerned by vulgar eyes. 

Shrinking with felt unworthiness and shame, 
John spake opposing Him : '' I have no claim 
To this high honor : I have need to be 
Of Thee baptized, and comest Thou to me?" 

And Jesus said, '* Now suffer it, for thus 



bear record that this is the Son of saying, I have need to be baptized 
God.] i^But John forbad him, of thee, and comest thou to me? 



and vicarious assumption of all law and all penalty on His part, and an 
offering up of Himself, all should be made alive, and we be redeemed from 
the curse of the law, He being made a curse for us. His baptism symbol- 
ized a complete satisfaction and atonement — all obedience, all suffering, 
all death and all triumph — whereby He "became the author of eternal 
salvation unto all that obey Him." It was of the nature of a formal and 
irrevocable commitment of Himself to the whole work of saving men. 
Jordan was to Him more than ten thousand Rubicons. He then put His 
hand to the plough and never looked back. 

Many have wondered at Christ's baptism, because they failed to see 
that there, in figure, Adam died ; and Moses was buried in the same grave 
with " the handwriting of ordinances that was against us;" and the pur- 
suing Pharaohs of our sometime tyrannizing lusts were drowned in deep 
waters to be swept on to the Dead Sea of oblivion — and that, still in 
figure, our mighty Joshua, Jehovah's Help, the Captain of our Salvation, 
abolishing death by death, " descended first into the lowest parts* of the 



* There is an accidental, literal fitness (or is it not wholly accidental?) in this lan- 
guage, seeing the Jordan at the place where Christ was baptized is full two hundred 
and twenty fathoms below the level of the sea, which is deeper down into the heart 
of the earth than Jonah ever reached when he "cried out of the belly of hell," and 
" went down to the bottoms of the mountains ; and the earth with her bars was about 
him forever.'" Jonah ii : 2-6. 



THE BAPTISM. 125 

Complete obedience becometh us. 
God sent thee to baptize, and it is fit 
That I should ratify and thou submit. 
That I as the FULFILLER should fulfil 
Each jot and tittle of God's righteous will." 

Then yielded he, for how could he withstand 
The gracious urgency of that command. 



15 And Jesus answering said unto righteousness. Then he suffered 

him, Suffer it to be so now ; for him. 

thus it becometh us to fulfil all [i John v : 6 . This is he that came 



earth," that He might ascend on high, far above all heavens, leading 
captivity captive (Eph. v : 8-10), and opening up the way to all His follow- 
ers, that they too dying and rising again might mount with Him in imita- 
tive triumph. 

In saying Jesus became " the Christ " at His baptism, the meaning is, 
not that there took place at that time any change of personaUty or ad- 
vance of dignity, for he was undoubtedly the Son of God as much before 
as after — only that not being a proper name, but simply an official desig- 
nation, hkethat of King or Priest, Christ officially "came by water" or 
baptism, whereas Jesus personally " came by blood " or birth, according 
to I John V : 6 ; the Spirit bearing witness both at birth and baptism to 
the one truth that Jesus was the Son of God. The gnostic figment of 
two Christs, an earthly and a heavenly one, that were merged into one 
Christ at baptism, certainly finds no support in the New Testament ; and 
it may be questioned whether there is any better warrant for the related 
notion, current even in our best theology, that Christ did not arrive at the 
full knowledge of His Divine Sonship until His baptism. In clear contra- 
diction to this conception of a chrysalis Christ, and a hybernation of divine 
consciousness for thirty long years, is that distinct, unequivocal assertion 
of His conscious filial relationship to His Divine Father, made by Himself 
when He was twelve years old. 



126 THE EVANGEL 



O Jordan!"^ from thy crystal source — the crests, 
The top, the springy sides, the streaming breasts 
Of dewy Hermon — look ! for thou hast heard 
The wind-borne tidings of that whispered word. 



by water and bloofl, even Jesus tain Gnostics, the Cerinthians and 
Christ ; not by water only [as cer- Nicolaitans affirmedl, but by water 



* The Jordan, made forever sacred by the baptism of Christ in its 
waters, is otherwise remarkable. It is unique physically, being in this 
respect without a known parallel in the whole world. From the village of 
Hashbeiya on the north-west to the village of Shiba on the south-east of 
Banias (anciently Caesarea Philippi), the entire slope of Anti-Lebanon — 
which at the southern extremity of the range shoots up into the snow- 
crowned majestic Hermon nine thousand three hundred and seventy-six 
feet above the sea — is alive with bursting fountains and gushing streams, 
every one of which, great and small, finds its way sooner or later into th'^ 
swamp between Banias and " the Waters of Merom," now Lake Huleh, 
and eventually becomes a part of the Jordan. The principal soiu'ces are 
four. The longest by forty miles is that which bursts, copious, clear and 
cool, beneath a perpendicular rock near Hashbeiya, on the west side of 
Mount Hermon. From this point, which is seventeen hundred feet above 
the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea, which is thirteen hundred feet below 
it, the distance in a direct line is one hundred and twenty miles, this being 
doubled by the crookedness of the stream ; and the total fall is three thou- 
sand feet, amply justifying its name, which means " The Descender." 
From Lake Huleh (Merom), which is seven miles long to the .Sea of Gali- 
lee, the distance is ten miles, and the River's descent seven hundred feet, 
forming a series of falls and rapids. A strong current marks its course 
through the last-named Lake, which is oval in shape, twelve or fourteen 
miles in length by six or seven in breadth, and one hundred and sixty feet 
in depth. Its surface is six hundred and fifty-three feet below the level of 
the Mediterranean. 

Issuing from this the River continues to run southward in a deep valley, 
"the Valley" or " Plain of the Jordan," called by the present natives 
El Ghor, or " the Depression," six or seven miles wide, or about the same 
width as the Lake, and sunk ten or twelve hundred feet below the adjacent 
country on the western side, but more on the eastern, the eastern range 



THE BAPTISM. 12^ 

Come down from Lebanon! make haste and come 
With many a sparkhng leap from thy high home ! 
Pure as the snows in which thou hast thy source, 
Flow clear, receive no soil in all thy course ! 



and blood. And it is the Spirit Spirit is truth. . . *^[For] there are 
that beareth witness, because the three that bear witness [in earth], 



of hills being higher though rising less abruptly. In this there is a 
second depression of fifty feet, having a width of less than a quarter of a 
mile. The number of terraces are one, two or three, according as the 
hills approach more or less near to the banks of the River, which in its low 
channel winds about in a most tortuous manner all the way to the Dead 
Sea, making sixty miles equal to two hundred. Lieut. Lynch, of the U. 
S. Exploring Expedition in 1848, who in his metallic life boats was the first 
to traverse its whole length, speaks of plunging down twenty-seven 
threatening rapids, besides many smaller ones. It is crossed by three, 
or at most four fords. The first and second are marked by the remains 
of Roman bridges. The first is just below the Sea of Galilee ; the second 
above its confluence with the Jabbok ; the third and fourth immediately 
above and below the present bathing-place of the pilgrims opposite Jeri- 
cho. Its chief tributaries are the Hieromax near the Lake, and the Jabbok 
forty miles lower down, both on the eastern side. It is a little below the 
Jabbok that the rapid descent begins. 

The higher terraces on each side under the mountains are occupied by 
masses of vegetation. This is succeeded by the desert-plain or " Arabah," 
whence begin the regular descents to the bed of the Jordan. The first 
descent is over a long line of white argillaceous hills to a flat occupied with 
low shrubs of agnus-castus ; the second to a still lower flat occupied with a 
jungle of tamaris-ks and willows and oleanders. In this is the bed of the 
River, except lower down toward its mouth, where there is a third descent, 
and a bordering brake of canes and reeds. This long line of jungle never 
ceases ; its rich verdure offering a striking contrast to the scorched barren- 
ness of the rest of the valley — " a dry and thirsty land where no water is." 
Where, however, there is irrigation from living springs and streamlets, as 
at Jericho and along the shores of Lake Gennesaret, the excessive heat 
that prevails instead of blighting promotes vegetation, and there is the 
same tropical luxuriance which characterizes the jungle. The two ranges 



128 THE EVANGEL. 

Steep is the way and facile for thy feet ; 
Fly swift, for that the moments too are fleet ! 
The good news telling as thou sweep'st along, 
Thy murmurous gladness breaking into song. 



the Spirit, and the water, and the one. slf we receive the witness of 
blood: and these three agree in men, the witness of God is greater : 



of hills which accompany the river and close it in, extend along the Dead 
Sea and beyond on both sides of the desert Valley of the Arabah, even to 
the Red Sea. The River varies in width from eighty to one hundred and 
fifty feet, and in depth from five to twelve feet. Toward its mouth it is 
fifty, eighty and one hundred yards wide, and eleven, seven and three 
feet deep. Where it is widest, as here, tlie bottom is mud ; where 
narrowest it is rock or sand. It could not empty itself like other rivers 
into the ocean, because already thirteen hundred and sixteen feet below 
the ocean level ; and so the Dead Sea receives it. 

This being forty miles long and ten miles wide, is by far the largest 
as well as the lowest and the deepest of the three Lakes, which, with the 
long deep sulcus of the Jordan, have been hollowed out of the cavernous 
"limestone block which forms the main body of Syria." A tongue of land 
five miles wide runs out from the eastern side nearly across, and then 
curves northward. All south of this, being less than a quarter of the 
whole, is a kind of lagoon, not more than ten or twelve feet deep, while 
north of it the plummet, in some places, sinks to the depth of thirteen 
hundred and eight feet, making its bottom twenty-six hundred and twenty- 
four feet below the level of the Mediterranean. The water is very salt and 
bitter, and of a high specific gravity. Along the western shore are numer- 
ous springs, always flowing, some hot, some salt, some fetid. On the 
eastern side empty the never-failing Anion, and the Callirrhoe, a famous 
thermal spring, whose waters were for healing in Herod's time. On the 
south-western border lies a mountain (the Khashm Usdum — Sodom), 
described as a long, level ridge or dyke several miles in length and from 
three to four hundred feet in height, composed of crystallized rock-salt, 
capped with chalky limestone and gypsum. In the foreground stands a 
round pillar of salt, forty feet high, designated as the pillar of Lot's wife, 
but which probably is nothing more than one of those columnar masses 
which are hable, it is said, to be split off at intervals by the action oi 



T H E B A P T I S M . 1 29 

With arrowy speed through wondering Merom dart ! 
Let awed Gennesaret its waters part 
For a straight passage ! not once looking back 
To see how ripphng smiles pursue thy track. 



for this is the witness of God which Heb. v : 5. So also Christ glorified 
he hath testified of his Son. not himself to be made a high priest; 



the rains from the huge angular buttresses of the K. Usdum. There 
is a wide enclosed plain south of the Lake, six or seven miles in extent, 
which retains the name of El Ghor. Then a low range of hills sweeping 
round in the manner of a crescent terminates the Ghor ; and it is at this 
point that the Wady Arabah begins, one hundred feet higher, gradually 
increasing to eighteen hundred feet above the Dead Sea, and five hundred 
feet above the Gulf of Akabah — the eastern arm of the Red Sea, thirty- 
five miles farther on. This forms the water-shed, whence the waters flow 
northward and southward — two-thirds of the Arabah draining into the 
Dead Sea, and the other third into the Elanitic Gulf. The principal 
channel for the vast northern drainage is the Wady el Jeib, half a mile 
wide, bearing traces of an immense volume of water rushing through it, 
contributed by the highlands on the east and west, so that the quantity 
which flows into the Dead Sea from this side must be very great. 

Such is the Dead Sea of to-day — the thirsty " Behemoth " that " drink- 
eth up a river and hastethnot;" that " trusteth he can draw up Jordan 
into his mouth" (Jobxl: 23) — a steaming cauldron; a bowl that never 
overflows, notwithstanding the perpetual pouring in of fresh supplies ; 
no life in its lethal waters ; all around a scene of desolation ; its shores 
scorched and sterile under the withering power of the heat and salt com- 
bined. Evidently a great change has taken place since Lot, four thousand 
years ago (Gen. xiii : 10) " hfted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of 
Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed 
Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of 
Egypt." " The catastrophe " [the word used by the LXX. being curiously 
enough that used in geology to express a sudden change in the crust of 
the globe by physical violence] recorded in Gen. xix : 24, 25, extended not 
only to the inhabitants but the site also of the doomed cities and their 
environs (7repi;t;(jpov), being a part of "the Plain." In so far as the 
Greek term KaracTpo^ri etymologically imports, not an overturning or 



I 30 T II E E V A N G E L . 

Since thou must keep the channel cleft for thee 
Far down below the level of the sea, 
Hasten the more, and compensate delay 
By swifter whirlings on thy spiral way ! 



but he that said unto him, Thou art [He, the Father, glorified him, mak- 
my Son, to day have I begotten thee. ing him high priest.] . . . sThough 



upturning, but " a down-turning," it favors the hypothesis of a burying or 
engulphing. The account impUes that simultaneously there took place 
a like sinking down and subsidence of the lands adjacent, known as the 
Vale of Siddim, full, not of "slime-pits," but bitumen-pits, (ppeara 
dacpa/iTov, "wells of asphalt " (Gen. xiv : lo), probably wells of petro- 
leum, which is liquid bitumen — oil-wells as we call them, whereby " the 
Vale of the Fields " became " the Salt Sea " (Gen. xiv : 3). 

Recent writers have too hastily assumed that this could not be ; that the 
formation of the Lake must have been a much earlier event. In this 
assumption too much deference is paid to the supposed claims of science 
and too little to the truth of Scripture. It is pure assertion, without a 
particle of proof, that " the configuration of the country has undergone no 
change ; that the Jordan has flowed into the Dead Sea at nearly its present 
level ever since its occupation by man." Science does not say so.- She 
is too modest and too cautious for tliat. The truth is, science has not yet 
spoken. Science is certainty ; and on this point she has too imperfect a 
knowledge of facts to be certain. She knows nothing of that agile logic 
which jumps at conclusion in advance of proof. Men are often sure in 
proportion as they are superficial. If we are wise we will not allow our- 
selves to be imposed on by oracular utterances delivered in the name of 
science. Science has no infallible organ, and we are obliged to accept no 
man's dictum as final. So far as presumption goes, it is just the reverse 
of what is stated. It is as a million to one that the Jordan has }tot flowed 
into the Dead Sea at its present level ; and that ^Aere has been change dur- 
ing these four thousand years. Change was inevitable so long as water 
runs and wears, and chemical laws operate, and physical analogies hold 
good, and cause and effect are joined together in an eternal marriage. 

In so long a period the scratch of a pin would do something ; how much 
more that mighty plough of the Jordan, with its tilted share, sharp and 



T H E B A P T I S M . 1 3 1 

Nor let the thousand links of that long chain 
Thy hurrying feet entangle or detain ! 
Nor the rough terror of the deep descent, 
Nor the mild beauty of the banks prevent 

he were a Son, yet learned he obe- fered ; ^And being made perfect, he 
dience by the things which he suf- became the author of eternal salva- 

tipped with eternal adamant that never grows dull, buried and kept down 
in the penetrable and limy soil by the heavy hand of gravitation on its 
beam, and drawn by the unwearied forces of nature in ceaseless repetition 
in the same furrow, tearing and dissolving and making a clean sweep, 
leaving behind it no loosened earth in its course, and no permanent accu- 
mulations of silt or shingle at the end. Who is so ignorant of chemistry 
as not to know that pure water acts upon limestone and holds it in solution ? 
That carbonic acid gas disintegrates the hardest rocks, rots granite so 
that it crumbles and falls to pieces at a touch ? Besides, in a land honey- 
combed as Palestine is with caverns great and small, is it surprising that 
it, too, should have its " Mammoth Cave," one or more, capacious basins 
like those which form now the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, dug out 
by indefatigable delvers, working without intermission during thousands 
of years? Among " the things that are never satisfied, and that say not, 
It is enough," according to the words of Agur, Prov. xxx : t6, are " the 
grave and the earth that is not filled with water." The Dead Sea is such 
a grave — the unsated sepulchre of interminable waters that have been 
falling into it from remotest times, scooped out by the unresting hands of 
industrious gnomes working in darkness, aided from time to time by the 
mighty jotuns of the volcano and the earthquake — a Stygian Pool, shut 
out from the upper air, and fed wholly in the beginning by streams secret 
and subterranean — then as now always full but never overflowing, proba- 
bly because of some rent or fissure in its deep bottom by which it commu- 
nicates with an abyss still deeper and nearer central fires. For, as we have 
reason to believe, the great ocean itself has in like manner in its floor great 
cracks and chasms through which its waters rush in roaring floods down 
into the bottomless gulf of some fiery infernus. Artesian wells, bringing 
up fresh water from below the bottom of the sea, form a famihar proof 
that there are subterranean rivers and subterranean lakes of great magni- 
tude at extreme depths. 
In the desert of Sahara wells have been sunk with success to the depth of 



132 THE EVANGEL. 

Thy due arrival at the destined place 
Where John and Jesus wait a little space ! 
No moment lose, but time thy coming, so 
That the van waters shall have passed below- 



tion unto all that obey him ; loCalled [Ez. xlvii : 6. And he said unto 

of God a high priest after the order me, Son of man, hast thou seen 
of Melchisedec] this? Then he brought me, and 



twelve hundred feet. Those in the vicinity of I^ondon yielded in 1851 
twelve million gallons daily. One of the deepest was sunk in Paris in 1841. 
At the depth of seventeen hundred and ninety-two feet the boring rod sud- 
denly penetrated the arch of the rock over the subterranean waters, and 
fell several yards. In a few hours the water rose to the surface in an 
immense volume. Its yield is half a million of gallons a day. Its tem- 
perature eighty-two degrees Fahrenheit. A still deeper one is that atKis- 
singen in Bavaria, sunk for salt water, being eighteen hundred and seven- 
ty-eight feet deep. In China they have existed from time immemorial in 
great numbers. In one district, ten leagues by four, they may be counted 
by tens of thousands, sunk at very remote periods, for salt water and 
bituminous matters, which are brought up from the depth of eighteen 
hundred feet and even three thousand feet : whence also currents of car- 
buretted hydrogen gas (the same as that used in all our cities for lighting 
purposes) rush up in such quantities as to suffice for the evaporating of 
the salt water. It is very common for a copious discharge of this gas, 
with jets of petroleum, to accompany the flow of the brine from salt- 
wells every where. Around volcanoes petroleum is often seen floating 
upon the surface of the water. To the south of Vesuvius a spring of it 
rises up through the sea. Recent discoveries of it in immense quantities 
at our own doors have made us all familiar with this product ; and with 
the fact of the existence of large subterranean reservoirs, some near the 
surface, some more than a thousand feet down. Here, too, on opening a 
well, the violent rushing up of the carburetted hydrogen is often like the 
uncorking of a bottle of champagne. 

The pertinence of these facts is obvious, and yet they have received 
little or no attention. The Vale of Siddim, and the adjoining plains, we 
infer, formed once " the Oil Regions " of Palestine. That the " oil-wells " 
which existed before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah do not 



THE BAPTISM 



1.33 



Defiled by muddy affluents let in, 
And washings of the leprosy of sin. 

O happy River ! conscious in each drop 
From thy clear bottom to thy smiling top — 

caused me to return to the brink of when I had returned, behold, at the 
the river [brook Cedron]. ''Now bank of the river were very many 

exist now, is a pregnant proof that at that time, and by the same earth- 
quake which spent its violence all along the valley of the Jordan and the 
Arabah as far as the Elanitic Gulf, depressing some parts and raising 
others, there was an unroofing of these underground receptacles, and a 
continued combustion of their contents, thereby causing their obliteration. 
The ignition of the carburetted hydrogen in its spontaneous passage 
through the soil must in ordinary times have been of constant occurrence, 
and this circumstance may have given name to the chief city, Sodom, 
which means "Burning." On the western shores of the Caspian there 
is, at the present day, a similar tract called the Field of Fire, which con- 
tinually emits inflammable gas, and abounds in springs of naphtha and 
petroleum. The Phlegraean Fields of Campania offer Hkewise many 
points of resemblance. As Hot Springs are still existing, and as these in 
fact are natural Artesian wells issuing from great depths, why may we 
not suppose the Dead Sea to be one of these underground salt-lakes 
uncovered— an Artesian well with a wide mouth, its high arched roof fallen 
in, and long ago dissolved and carried away in solution we know not 
whither ? It is enough to know that in the capacious bowels of the earth 
there is ample room for this a thousand times over. The falling in may 
have been sudden, but the attenuations which led to it may have been 
slow, beginning with the creation. The upward pressure of the water 
upon the top of the containing reservoir could not fail continually to 
diminish the thickness of the superincumbent crust both by mechanical 
wear and chemical erosion, even beyond the action of the water above 
ground, and thus secretly contribute to the final disruption and caving in. 
Whether the immediate cause of the precipitation was miraculous or 
natural ; whether it was brought in from afar, or found and formed on the 
spot, is not material. In either case the event would be providential ; 
something foreseen and provided for ; the result of creative forecast and 



134 THE EVANGEL. 

Deep calling unto deep, as rapids swift 
To foaming cataracts their voice uplift 
In eager proclamation, far to near 
And near to far, loud shouting, God is here 



trees on the one side and on the These waters issue out toward the 
other, sfhen said he unto me, east country, and go down into the 



anticipation — providence being in a sense a property of creation itself; 
which so far frora being blind is full of eyes, seeing the end from the 
beginning, and taking care that the undelaying cause is timed to the 
unwaiting effect. The divineness of an event is not its miraculousness. 
It can be divine and yet the ordinary outcome (the Saxon equivalent for 
" event ") of natural and known causes. And so a miracle may be less 
the mystery of a new creation, than the inimitableness of a divine manipu- 
lation of means already existing, the newness of a new synthesis (if the 
pedantry of the form may be pardoned) of the ultimates of a divine anal- 
ysis of the things around us. If it be objected that to push analysis thus 
far is to resolve all into the simplicity of the power of God, be it so. Cer- 
tain it is, Nature and God never cross, but are always parallel or coinci- 
dent. The outbursting volcano and the shattering earthquake are the 
docile and meek instruments of Omnipotent pleasure, and keep step in the 
grand march of all material causes in the execution of the Divine purpose, 
whether of judgment or mercy, at the predestinated moment. God having 
prepared the mine explodes it. 

Dean Stanley's statement — that " a convulsion of such magnitude as not 
only to create a new lake [the Dead Sea] but depress the valley of the 
Jordan several hundred feet below the sea level, and elevate the valley of 
the Arabah above it, must have shattered Palestine to its centre, and left 
upon the historical traditions of the time an indelible impression "--is 
remarkable for the many things which it takes for granted. In the first 
place, it is assumed not only without proof but against all probability, that 
all these changes took place at once ; that they were the work of a moment ; 
the immediate result of one terrible throe of agonized Nature, whose 
rending violence, not bounded to these, must have spread ruin on all sides, 
of which, if it occurred in historic times, there would necessarily have 
come down to us monument or memorial or trace of some kind. Now 
were the first true the last would not follow. So late as 1819, a large tract 



T H E B A P T I S M . I 3 5 

Thou, ever reverent, o'er many a steep, 
With kneeUngs many, and prostrations deep 
FalHng and faUing, low and lower fall 
And kiss His feet, who is the Lord of all ! 



desert, and go into the sea [Dead the sea, the waters shall be healed.] 
Sea], which beingbrought forth into i^And Jesus, when he was bap- 

of land in the Delta of the Indus sunk down. The sea flowing into the 
eastern mouth of the river, in a few hours converted an area of two thou- 
sand square miles into an inland sea or lagoon. Strange to say, neither 
the rush of the sea into the new depression, nor the movement of the 
earthquake threw down the small fort of Sindree, nor the houses of the 
village, although these were submerged so that their tops only could be 
seen above the water. Sir Charles Lyell infers from facts hke these that 
great permanent upheavings and depressions of the soil may take place 
without the inhabitants being in the least degree conscious of a change of 
level ; and he calls attention to " the moral phenomenon connected with 
this tremendous catastrophe," for which the authority of Sir A. Burnes is 
quoted, who states that " these wonderful events passed tmheededh'j the 
inhabitants of Cutch." 

In 1810-12, in the county of New Madrid in Missouri, an area of land 
eighty miles in one direction by thirty miles in another, now known as the 
"sunk country," was depressed. Large lakes of twenty miles in extent 
were formed in the course of an hour, and others were drained. At 
one period during the earthquake the ground not far below the town of 
New Madrid swelled up so as to arrest the Mississippi in its course, and 
cause a temporary reflux of its waters. The earth rose in great undula- 
tions. The vertical movement is said to have been much less desolating 
than the horizontal. This event, although so recent, and taking place in 
our very midst, is not known, we venture to say, to one in a thousand of 
the inhabitants of the United States. In the Island of Jamaica, in 1692, 
a thousand acres or more sank in less than one minute — the sea rolling in 
over the tops of houses. In the Island of Java, in 1772, an area suddenly 
sunk down, including the mountain of fifteen miles long and six broad, 
carrying with it fourteen villages. The great earthquake of Lisbon, in 
1775, threw down the greater part of the city. Sixty thousand persons 
perished in the space of six minutes. The new marble quay instantly sank. 



136 THE EVANGEL. 

He is not here for cleansing, He is clean ; 
A purity like His was never seen. 
He can thee wash, and, washing, holy make 
The guilty, bitter, deep Asphaltic Lake. 



tized, went up' straightway out of were opened unto him, and he saw 
the water : and, lo, the heavens the Spirit of God descending hke a 



and the water over the spot stood six hundred feet, entombing in chasms 
of unknown depth thousands of persons and vessels near by. 

By the earthquake of 1783 in Calabria a great gulf was formed, like an 
amphitheatre, five hundred feet long and two hundred feet deep. Ravines 
were opened varying from thirty to two hundred and twenty feet deep, 
some a mile long. A lake was suddenly created, Lago del Toltilo, seven- 
teen hundred and eighty feet long, nine hundred and thirty-seven feet 
broad and fifty feet deep. Deep chasms opened and shut again ; others 
remained gaping ; land-slides obstructed the rivers, altering their courses; 
and the whole aspect of the country was changed. Some of the moim- 
tains seemed to jump up and down, and their summits took on perma- 
nently new shapes. So late as 1822, during a violent earthquake and 
volcanic eruption in Java, one side of the mountain called Galongoon, 
which was covered by a dense forest, became an enormous gulf in the form 
of a semi-circle. In Chili, in the same year, an area equal to a hundred 
thousand square miles of the country between the Andes and the coast 
w^as permanently elevated from two to seven feet. 

In further proof of the point how limited and local may be the disturb- 
ance, the sudden formation m the Phlegraean Fields near Naples, of a new 
mountain (Monte Nuovo) in 1583 may be adduced. The height of the 
mountain is four hundred and forty feet, and the circumference at its base 
more than a mile and a half. The depth of its crater is four hundred and 
twenty feet. It was mostly thrown up in forty-eight hours, the greater 
part in twenty-four, and yet there were left standing unmoved, not swayed 
in the least from the perpendicular, the walls of certain Roman monu- 
ments, temples of Apollo and Pluto, situated at its very base. Lyell 
speaks, moreover, of the striking manner in which the recent volcanic hills 
of Ischia, and those of the Phlegraean Fields — Monte Nuovo, Monte Bar- 
baro, Astroni and the Solfatara — blend with the surrounding landscape, 



THE BAPTISM. I37 

Breast high in thee, not snow is half so white, 
Nor half so spotless is th' unsullied light ; 
Caressing eddies round and round Him whirled 
In circling dance, the Wonder of the world, 

dove, and lighting upon him: ^''And, This is my beloved Son, in whom 1 
lo, a voice from heaven, saying, am well pleased. [Mark i : 10. And 



there being nothing in the physical features by which a stranger could de- 
termine their ages or distinguish them from the oldest parts. 

Not only do the facts here cited supply material for refutation, but are 
refutation themselves. They show what has actually taken place, and is 
taking place in sinkings and upheavals, in places remote in some cases 
from volcanoes, as great as those discredited. What becomes then of the 
hypothetical impossibility? In no part of the world have earthquakes 
been more frequent or more violent than in Syria and Judea. From their 
alternating with those in Southern Italy, it is suspected that there is a sys- 
tem of communicating fissures, having a common relation to one deep- 
seated focus of volcanic fires. A period of quiescence with one usually 
corresponds with a period of activity with the other. Antioch, situated on 
the banks of the Orontes, three hundred miles north of Jerusalem, and 
thirty miles from the Mediterranean, lying therefore in the direct line of 
the Jordan Valley, and so to speak in a northern extension of it, has suf- 
fered peculiarly from earthquakes. It was almost destroyed by one A. D. 
115 ; again in 458 ; and in 526 occurred the most disastrous on record. 
Gibbon states that it was estimated that two hundred and fifty thousand 
persons then perished. They affected elongated areas. The violent shocks 
which devastated Syria in 1837 were felt on a line five hundred miles in 
length by ninety in breadth ; more than six thousand persons perished ; 
deep rents were made in solid rocks, and new hot springs burst out. Those 
which formed the once celebrated baths of Tiberias near the Lake were 
greatly disturbed, made hotter and more active, and the modern city of Tu- 
barieh was nearly destroyed. So in Southern Europe. There is a central 
tract where mountains are torn asunder, the surface elevated or depressed, 
and cities laid in ruins. On either side of this line there are parallel bands 
where the shocks are less violent. Beyond these there are spaces where 
they are much rarer and more feeble, but sufficient by continued repetition 
to cause an appreciable alteration in the external form of the earth's crust. 



138 THE EVANGEL. 

He stoops to thee in all His heavenly charms 
I see Him sinking in thy jeweled arms, 
Lost one amazing moment to the sight, 
Then rising radiant dripping gems of light. 



straightway coming up out of the and the Spirit like a dove descend- 
water, he saw the heavens opened, ing upon him. i^And there came a 



There are three kinds of earthquake motions, viz., undulatory or wave- 
like, vertical and whirling. According as the propagation of the undula- 
tions are in a linear direction or concentric, earthquakes are called linear 
or central. Their effects will be most intense where the earth's strata are 
most broken — in deep fissures which establish a ready communication 
with the surface. So frequent are they, that they may be said to be oc- 
curring almost daily in some part of the world. 

Now, as the Arabah and the Jordan lie in the direct path of the most 
desolating earthquakes, it is utterly incredible that during all these thou- 
sands of years no changes should have taken place. We could believe 
anything rather than that. Interpreted by the light of the above facts, 
there is ample ground for saying, that the mysterious depression of the 
Valley of the Jordan and the two Lakes so far below the Mediterranean, 
not suspected until Lynch's Expedition, is the aggregate effect of many 
convulsions, rather than one, during which the whole ground has been 
again and again rent and fissured, and the containing basins of Gennesa- 
ret and the Dead Sea have been cracked and shattered like a broken vase ; 
aided doubtless by other causes, such as the action of water finding its 
way into the fissures of the split rocks, insidiously undermining and re- 
moving, or with sudden violence pushing fracturing and upheaving great 
masses at once ; to which may be added, besides causes previously sug- 
gested, that other agency to which, according to some, the principal 
inequalities of the earth's surface including the great ocean cavities are 
due, namely, the sinking or bending down of the outward crust become 
too large, by more rapid cooling, for its contents, the contained interior 
being shrunk and shriveled up by the baking heat of intestine fires. The 
dynamics of earthquakes are very imperfectly understood, but the causes of 
that gradual subsidence of whole countries like Sweden, which is silently 
going on at the present time as ascertained by careful measurements, are still 



r II E B A P T I S M . 1 39 



And as He, praying, doth from thee ascend, 
(Wonder of wonders when will wonders end) 
Heaven's doors dimensionless wide open spread, 
And more than Heaven descends upon His head. 



voice from heaven, saying, Thou when all the people were baptized, 
art my beloved Son, in whom I am it came to pass, that Jesus also be- 
well pleased, Luke iii : 21. Now ing baptized, and praying, the hea- 



more obscure. There is no greater fallacy, as Lyell labors to show in op- 
position to a class of geologists, than that the earth has settled into a state 
of repose. The fact is, nothing is in one stay. Terra firma is a misnomer. 
If this is true of the globe generally, how much more of that wonderful cre- 
vasse of the Jordan which has been, through all historic time, the dusty 
highway for the trampling feet of mighty earthquakes. Modern explora- 
tions, of which the object is the fixing and identifying of old localities, 
failing to take account of great possible changes, even since the time of 
Christ, are pretty sure to result in failure. Without actual measurements 
it would not be safe to say that there have not been appreciable changes, 
possibly a farther sinking down, since those made by Lieutenant Lynch 
in 1848. 

The subject is one of considerable importance in various ways, and we 
have sought, therefore, to furnish such facts as would enable the reader 
to draw his own conclusions. We shall be surprised if he does not find 
reason to adhere to the old theory, whicii has the united support of scrip- 
ture, tradition and scientific probability ; finding nothing incredible in the 
supposition but the reverse, that prior to the destruction of Sodom and 
Gomorrah "the Plain of the Jordan," instead of being sunk as now 
below the Mediterranean, was elevated above it, and that the River, not as 
now turbulent and precipitous, flowed along a gentle slope in tranquil 
current, pursuing its beautiful way through a well-watered and blooming 
paradise, straight through the Vale of Siddim, high above " the Salt Sea " 
then a subterranean lake, past the five guilty cities, onward along the 
Arabah not then "a desert," till greatly increased in volume it emptied 
into the Red Sea. This reconciles all. An earthquake not more violent 
perhaps than some that have occurred during the present century would 
suffice to cause great changes of level, while it executed fiery judgment 
on Sodom and Gomorrah, with dreadful concomitants — " the breath of the 



140 THE EVANGEL. 

The Holy Ghost, down darting from above 
In volant shape and semblance of a dove, 
There rests, expressing peace, and, lo ! is heard 



ven was opened, 22And the Holy came from heaven, which said, Thou 
Ghost descended in a bodily shape art my beloved Son, in thee I am 
like a dove upon him, and a voice well pleased. -^And Jesus himself 

Lord like a stream of brimstone " (Isa. xxx : 33) kindling an inextinguish- 
able conflagration, whose fuel was not so much the buildings, nor yet the 
upper bituminous nitrous and sulphurous soil, as vast underground mag- 
azines of explosive liquid and gas, which flaming upward filled the skies 
with great flakes and cinders, to be rained back again — ' ' fire and brimstone 
and a horrible tempest "—with noise of thunder and with lurid lightnings ; 
at the same time that the earth yawned and swallowed city and inhabitant, 
making them " go down quick into hell" (Ps. Iv : 15) ; the ground split 
by vertical violence laying open then first to the light of day the dark tar- 
larean gulf since known as the Salt Sea, the Sea of Sodom and the Sea of 
Death. As the power of an earthquake cannot be measured, nor the area 
of its action be determined beforehand, no one has the right to affirm 
absolutely that changes like these and as great as these could not have 
taken place yesterday or that they might not happen again to- morrow. 
Still it is proper to say, that while it is quite true that no limit can be 
assigned to the possibilities of an agency which may one day shatter the 
globe itself, it would be wrong to bring down the catastrophe that over- 
whelmed the Cities of the Plain to the level of an ordinary occurrence, for 
it is every where spoken of as something signal, exceptional, and in a 
judicial sense if no other, miraculous, that is to say, the immediate act of 
God. 

Mr. Grove in Smith's Bible Dictionary, both under the heads of " the 
Salt Sea " and of " Sodom," not being able to make the statement found in 
Genesis xiv : 3, " The Vale of Siddim which is the Salt Sea," square with 
his theory of denial, assumes that the words " which is the Salt Sea," did 
not form a part of the original text but was subsequently added by some 
ancient scribe as a note of explanation. Now if the words stood alone, and 
the connexion with the context were merely accidental and not vital ; still 
more, if they were at variance instead of being in harmony with the tenor 
of the rest of the narrative, then the possibility of an interpolation might 
be conceded, and the dernier resort of rejection be justified. But since it 



THE BAPTISM. I4I 

A voice from Heaven that joins th' attesting word: 

" Thou art My Son, My Sole Begot, in Thee 
I am well pleased. Begin Thyself to be ! " 



l>e^an to be [t/v ap_;^o/z£vof =" was guration"] about thirty years oi 
in the beginning," or " at His inau- age. 



is otherwise, and the explanatory phrase is indispensable to the right un- 
derstanding of what follows ; is the key in fact to the mystery ; making 
clear, consistent and credible all that is said respecting the fertility of the 
plain of the Jordan, and the site of the five cities; providing, moreover, 
needed space in the right place for the ample ordering of habitation and 
battlefield ; and a righting and reconciling of all disagreements between 
the then and now — surely, under such circumstances, the application of 
the knife of excision is a proceeding purely arbitrary, and can be justified 
upon no just principle, but must be regarded as an unwarrantable muti- 
lation of the sacred record — an actual cutting across, indeed, of the arteries 
which constitute its life. 



XII. 

THE TEMPTATION. 

^ I ^HEN by the Spirit, without measure given, 
-*- Jesus into the wilderness was driven^ 
No wind did ever drive more willing- sail — 
Our second Adam, since our first did fail, 
To be there tempted of the Devil. Good 



[Matth. iv : i. Then was Jesus measure unto Him] into the wilder- 
led up of the Spirit [John iii : 34. ness to be tempted of the devil.* 
For God giveth not the Spirit by sAnd when he had fasted forty days 

*After the Baptism the Temptation. Now the newly inaugurated Christ 
begins to do the work His Father gave Him to do, and to save mankind. 
The first step taken there is no power can prevent or delay the second. 
Nature is not more sequent and immediate. With the paternal voice 
speaking out of the excellent glory still sounding in His ears, testifying, 
" Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee : " and again, " Thou 
art a Priest forever after the order of Melchisedec," "A minister of the 
sanctuary and the true tabernacle [the temple of His body] which the 
Lord pitched [now again in the wilderness] and not man," " Jesus was 
led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil." He 
who taught us to pray, " Lead us not into temptation," was Himself led 
into it. It would seem that thus early, " It pleased the Lord to bruise Him 
and put Him to grief." Mark uses still stronger language : " And imme- 
diately the Spirit driveth [^■/c/3a/l?.ef=casts, thrusts outj Him into the 
wilderness." Not that He went unwillingly ; for His was not " a fugitive 



THE TEMPTATION. I43 

In righteousness invincible he stood ; 

Was with wild beasts — such awe hath innocence — 

Nor ate nor hungered, plunged in thouglit intense, 

For forty days ; these ended, felt at last 

The sharpness of the pangs of His long fast. 

Now Satan, ply thine arts, stand not aloof! 
He doth defy thee ; put Him to the proof! 



and forty nights, he was afterward Mark i : 12. And immediately 

an hungred, the Spirit driveth [i KiSu/i-Xec] him 



and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sahies out 
and seeks his adversary." But He went freely, as goes the athlete — ^i/asi 
athleta sponte procedeiis — for lofty discipline ; to train and exercise Himself; 
to struggle, to wrestle, and to prevail ; to silence and trample, after brief 
contest, under His victorious feet, Satan, the Arch Foe and Accuser of 
mankind ; going into the wilderness, not to fly temptation, but to put to 
flight the Tempter ; not to dwell there, but to return. His purpose accom- 
plished, after a short stay. 

The Spirit compelled as the heart compels. The power was not from 
without but from within. It was the push of the pulse — a divine vis a 
ter^oMxgmg Him forward. It was that necessity of His being which led 
Him to say: "I must be about My Father's business. My meat and 
drink is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work. I 
have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be 
accomplished." This drove Him forth. It was not because, like Paul, 
He needed Satanic buffetings to humble Him, " lest He should be exalted 
above measure through the abundance of the revelations," for He was 
never otherwise than " meek and lowly in heart." 

" Being full of the Holy Ghost," consequent on a divine cataclysm and 
a new baptism, what time "all the fountains of the great deep [of His 
being] were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened," the 
Ark of our Deliverance, emergent and afloat, "went upon the face of the 
waters" of the deluge of His overflowing Divinity ; "and the flood was 



144 THE EVANGEL. 

His calm, untroubled heart, without affright, 

Hath heard thy stealthy footsteps through the 
night ; 

And known thee near, both sleeping and awake ; 

Perceived thy hiss in the envenomed snake ; 

Housed in wild beasts thy roarings vex the air; 

Thy hellish malice in their eyeballs glare. 

This is thy hour: make good thy boasts ! display 

Thy craft and cunning in the light of day ! 



into the wilderness. And he was tempted of Satan, and was with the 
there in the wilderness forty days, wild beasts. 



forty days upon the earth," Gen, vii : ii, 17, "And in those days he did 
eat nothing," not feeling the need of food. He fasted without hunger. 
Exceptional but not solitary, for Moses and Elijah fasted forty days like- 
wise, this long fast was not necessarily miraculous, but only proved the 
intensity and entireness of His spiritual preoccupation. The fastin g formed 
no part of the trial. It was merely incidental. It was like the fast ot 
fever, unaccompanied by desire. It had not the merit of self-denial. 
Fasting is only then meritorious when it is used as a means to an end. 
Christ was no ascetic. Hunger overtook Him, He did not go in pursuit 
of it. 

Behold ! the promised Man is here — He that was to restore the Paradise 
that was lost, and bruise the Serpent's head. Adam is again on trial, but 
the scene of it is no longer the Garden of Delight and Innocence, but out 
in the cursed and desolate places of the earth, whence when man fell he 
had been driven : 

" Infamous hills and sandy perilous wilds," 

with its savage tenantry of wild beasts, the reputed haunt of demons, 
where satyrs dance and cry to each other, and unclean spirits roam, seek- 
ing rest and finding none. It is not known whether the wilderness spoken 



THE TEMPTATION. I45 

And when the Tempter came to Him, he said : 
•* If Son of God, command these stones be bread! " 

But Jesus answered, " Nay! of old 'twas shown,. 
Man shall not live by bread, or bread alone : 
But by each word that from God's mouth proceeds,. 
Tied to no means to satisfy his needs. 
When Israel hungered, God a table spread 



Luke iv : i. And Jesus being full Jordan, and was led by the Spirit 
of the Holy Ghost returned from into the wilderness. 2 Being forty 



of was the Quaranfania, near Jericho, this side of the Jordan ; or the 
mountains of Moab, Nebo or Pisgah, on the other side ; or Sinaitic soli- 
tudes, the old sites of the Israelitish encampments during the forty years' 
wanderings in the desert. Nor is the point material. 

We are ignorant likewise what form Satan assumed, but are accustomed 
to take it for granted that it was human. Certainly the character of the 
temptations does no discredit to his ancient reputation for consummate 
craft. There is nothing gross in them ; nothing to startle ; but are spe- 
ciously religious. The evil is lurking and latent, and, at first sight, does 
not seem to be evil. He onl}'' says : "If Son of God, be what you are ! 
Act in character ! Justify your claim ! It is right you should. Self-pre- 
servation is the first law of nature. Throwing yourself from a height is 
but throwing yourself into the arms of God. I promise to give you the 
throne of the Cesars, and I ask nothing in return but acknowledgment 
and thanks." The answer to each artful suggestion is ready, and the 
infernal sophism is demohshed at a word. The victory seems easy, but 
is not easy, for it is the painful outcome of " prayers and supplications 
offered up with strong crying and tears." 

The Son of God is also the Son of Man. Christ's priestly sympathy 
has the sure basis of consanguinity. He is our Kinsman and Elder 
Brother. He is none the less Man because He is God. " He was in all 
points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." His Godhood was perfect 
from the beginning : His Manhood was made perfect. " Though He were 



146 THE EVANGEL. 

Far in the desert where there was no bread , 
Quotidian manna graciously did give, 
Something that was not bread, yet did he live. 
In God we live, and out of Him we die, 
And bread were stones unless He life supply. 

" Shall I distrust My Heavenly Father's care, 
And filch by miracle My hungry share ? 



days tempted of the devil. And in when they were ended, he afterward 
those days he did eat nothing ; and hungered. 



a Son yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." The 
higher nature or life did not abolish the lower ; but overtopped it, and 
informed it by a voluntary descent and influx, constituting the life of the 
life. From supernal heights and eternal fountains flowed that River of 
God. While His humanity touched the heavens, His divinity pierced it 
and passed out of sight into the heaven of heavens. 

This vital fact of two natures united but not confounded, although mi- 
raculous is not monstrous. Admitting it transcends physiology, still 
physiological analogies are not wanting. Life in man, and even in brutes, 
stands for lives which are in a sense distinct and independent. There is 
the organic life, the life of the organs, cell-life, which from being common 
to both vegetables and animals may be called vegeto-animal life. Rising 
from this lowest floor of life is sentient life, the life of relation with the 
outer world, known as animal life. Above this still, is the life distinctively 
human, the unshared hfe of the immortal mind or spirit, bounded by cor- 
poreal shores but open to the infinite, whence come quickenings and inspi- 
rations from God, making us sons of a new birth, and " partakers of the 
divine nature." 

Over these several lives dominates the will, the lord of the body and all 
its parts, with power to isolate one part or faculty, and employ it to the 
exclusion of the rest, or bring into play many or all at once. There are 
stories and walls of partition which divide but do not destroy the unity of 
the household. Upon the voluntary opening or the shutting of a door how 



THE TEMPTATION. 147 

Let thirst consume Me, and let hunger gnaw ; 
'T were better thus, than violate the law 
Of My subjection ; better far to starve, 
Than with unlawful instruments to carve. 

*' The life is more than meat. The menial part 
Must be subservient to the mind and heart. 
Ungoverned appetite makes man a beast, 



Luke iv : 3. And the devil said command this stone that it be made 
unto him, If thou be the Son of God, bread. 4And Jesus answered him 



much depends ? What is so easy as the hfting or closing of the eye-lids ? 
and yet while one reveals the universe the other blots it. It was meant, 
that the highernature should descend into the lower, to humanize and ele- 
vate the bestial, to cast out the unclean, and make all chaste and holy. It 
is voluntary with us whether this shall take place. It is as the will deter- 
mines whether the beast or the man shall assert itself; whether the 
devilish or the godhke. This faculty, mediating between the two lives, 
responsive to pleadings and appeals from the animal nature addressed to 
the human, is able to maintain the body's chastity and keep it under. 

So, we conceive, in Christ, high above the human was the divine, the 
two blended into one personality or self, but each, in a sense, distinct from 
the other, with a mediating will connecting and directing, separately or 
conjointly, their appropriate activities — the divine answering the cries of the 
human in the dreadful hour of temptation and trial, but not otherwise than 
in the ordinary normal manner, so as not to affect the reality of the proba- 
tion, making it truly and absolutely human, in order that the merit might 
be human. This isolating power for independent action, so to speak, of 
the strictly human self, apart from the divine, comparable in a degree to 
the familiar power we all possess of segregating one part of the body from 
all the other parts ; of employing, for example, the little finger separate 
from the rest of the hand in lifting a weight — made it possible for Him to 
render an obedience which being essentially man's should redound to 



148 THE EVANGEL. 

A swinish feeder at an unblest feast. 
Who Hves to pleasure, ne'er to live begins, 
But is all dead in trespasses and sins. 

" To eat is not to live. The life of man 
Is an eternal life, and only can 
Be nourished by that bread which is not bread, 
But the renewing word of God instead." 



saying, It is written that man shall every word of God. 

not live by bread alone, but by [Matth. iv : 3, And when the 



man's advantage. It being man that was on trial, from first to last in all 
that concerned Himself He acted and suffered as a man. 

Although He was " the Word made flesh;" and " in Him dwelt all the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily," nothing can be clearer than that the 
whole stress and strain of the trial were borne by the human half, while 
the divine was held strictly in abeyance. He who a few days after changed 
water into wine, certainly did not want power to make the stones bread ; 
but in complying with the temptation to do so to satisfy His personal 
needs, He would have abdicated His humanity, overridden it and cast it 
aside, and so nullified His mission. The second Adam would have failed 
like the first, and there would have been to a lapsed race no new 

" Eden raised in the waste wilderness." 

It was indispensable, however severe the trial, that He should never take 
refuge in the exercise of extraordinary powers ; accordingly we find that 
while He wrought miracles for others. He wrought none on His own ac- 
count. " He saved others. Himself He could not save." 

It is a great mistake to suppose that the possession of divine attributes 
made the task He came to perform less difficult. So far from this, it was 
an infinite enhancement of the severity of the ordeal, inasmuch as it 
imposed on humanity the duty of a stupendous self-abnegation— nothing 
short of this : To possess all power and not to use it ; to be consciously 



THE TEMPTATION. I49 

The Devil then, his first temptation vain, 
Running the hazard of defeat again, 
Him took into the Holy City, fair 
Jerusalem, and gave Him footing there 
The Temple's giddy pinnacle upon, 
The perilous edge of its ' pterygion.' 
And said : 

" If Son of God, cast Thyself down ! 
I give Thee chance Thy filial trust to crown 



tempter came to him, he said, If that these stones be made bread 
thou be the Son of God, command [aproi = loaves of bread]. *But he 



God, and yet voluntarily man ; to stagger under the w^eight of man's sins, 
to bear his griefs and carry his sorrows and endure his stripes. 

He, who being in the form [//op^^v] of God — representing and person- 
ating God — thought it no robbery — no usurpation, no appropriation of 
prerogatives which did not belong to Him — to claim equality with God, 
had laid aside no attribute of Divinity when He shrouded Himself in 
human flesh. He was no less omnipotent when He tabernacled with us 
than when His spoken fiat " made every thing that was made." It was 
not so much before as after Ho came, and then only when acting in the 
capacity of man's substitute, that He voluntarily, it was His own act, 
momentarily and incessantly emptied or stripped Himself, put off the 
vestments of divine sovereignty and rule to assume the form, represent 
the character, wear the distinctive badge and garb, endure the contradic- 
tion, and all the injurious and base belongings pertaining to the part 
of a servant — girded to wait and minister, an underling to underlings. 
Made in the likeness of sinful flesh (it was only " likeness " in this respect 
for He Himself was sinless), and found in the true guise and habit of a 
man. He accepted human conditions ; humbled Himself to unjust author- 
ity — still voluntarily, for ten legions of angels were at His beck ; submitted 
to be bound and led away ; ' ' gave His back to the smiters, and His cheek 



ISO THE EVANGEL. 

By highest act. 'Tis surely safe : why fear ? 

For it is written positive and clear, 

He'll give His angels charge concerning Thee, 

To keep Thee in entire security ; 

And they'll upbear Thee, tender of each bone, 

Lest Thou should'st dash Thy foot against a stone. 

This Holy Place, all conscious too of Thee, 

Ground shall be soft, and air shall buoyant be ; 



answered, It is written, Man shall word that proceedeth out of the 
not live by bread alone, but by every mouth of God.] 



to them that plucked off the hair, and hid not His face from shame and 
spitting;" and, finally, " delivered by the determinate counsel and fore- 
knowledge of God," and condemned by a wicked decree, "became obe- 
dient unto death, even the death of the cross." The right hand of His 
Godhead might have prevented but did not. He yielded His life, no man 
took it. His own words are clear and explicit : " I lay down My own life. 
No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to 
lay it down, and I have power to take it again." Had it been wrested 
from Him in His own despite, the merit of His death, unhke His life, 
would not have been His own, nor by imputation ours. Death was not 
defeat. He descended into the grave bearing in His hands " the keys of 
hell and of death." Even before His own resurrection, at the grave of 
Lazarus He had vindicated His right to say: "I am the Resurrection 
and the Life ! " It is wonderful to see how a latent omnipotence under- 
lying His voluntary helplessness, made that divine which else were human ; 
so that when most man, He was most God, 

That Jesus was, even up to the time of His baptism, mainly ignorant 
of Himself; that it was not until His human consciousness had reached 
its full development that He gained the absolute knowledge of His divinity, 
seems to us to be a most arbitrary and unscriptural hypothesis, worthy 
only of the humanitarian school : and yet it is that view which many, 
otherwise orthodox, favor. We confess to a great disHke to it. It chills 



THE TEMPTATION. I5I 

And those below, who witness Thy descent, 
Will think Thou art from heaven directly sent." 

'' How true it is," said Jesus in reply, 
'' One half God's truth is but the Devil's lie. 
It is thus written, but 'tis writ again, 
In language no less positive and plain, 
' Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God ! ' No ! No ! 

Luke iv : 9. And he brought him nacle [to nregvyiov = the wing] of 
to Jerusalem, and set him on a pin- the temple, and said unto him, If 



and offends us. The animus is wanting, otherwise we should almost feel 
that to such an enormous truncation of consciousness there attached the 
guilt of a spiritual mayhem. If corporeal maiming is a crime, how much 
more the mutilation and dismemberment of Christ's perfect humanity. 
Between the Divine and the Human we must beheve there was from the 
first a true marriage. The twain became one. Assuredly the Divine 
Bridegroom did not wed defect and deformity, but a Bride humanly com- 
plete and without blemish. Nor were there any jealous withholdings or 
postponements of confidence, but an immediate beginning of divine 
endearments and communications of the divine. It is not too much to 
say, that all the while the growing germ of the Word made flesh lay in 
pre-natal sleep in the loving arms of the enfolding Godhead, there were 
not wanting thriUing organic recognitions and exultations of the flesh— 
for even the unborn forerunner had as much, as shown by his leaping in 
his mother's womb for joy, that moment the two mothers met. And if 
before birth we have a right to assume there were fond automatic clasp- 
ings and embracings, responsive to the bosom intimacies of whispered 
love, can we suppose that the New-born, as He lay in the manger, with 
His eyes and ears open to earthly sights and sounds, saw not in kneehng 
posture of commanded worship " all the angels of God;" and heard not 
the voices of the heavenly host singing the " Gloria in excelsis " in honor 



152 THE EVANGEL. 

To tempt is not to trust ; distrust they show. 
Who must first try before they will confide ; 
To trust God truly is to trust untried. 
Subject the counterfeit to chemic test, 
But not Heaven's mintage properly imprest 

" God's adamantine laws, on nature writ. 
Are scarcely safe against the sponge of wit. 



thou be the Son of God, cast thyself ten, He shall give his angels charge 
down from hence : i" For it is writ- over thee to keep thee [in all thy 



of His advent? Was His consciousness a blank, when it is said even of 
us: 

" Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

From God, who is our home ; 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy." 

The poet, to be sure, makes this the special privilege of childhood, and 
goes on to say : 

" The youth who daily from the east 
Must travel, still is Nature's priest, 
And by the vision splendid 
Is on the way attended : 
At length the man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the common light of day," 

But in regard to Him, this distinction was confined to no period, but be- 
longed to all periods. His native Nazareth was not more familiar to Him 
than His native Heaven. It was about Him forever. It was only for the 
sake of others that there were occasional riftings of the concealing veil. 
He needed it not, " that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man 
which is in heaven," John iii : 13 ; whose eye and thought ranging through 
eternity, far above the ken and knowledge of angels, were conversant with 
the secrets of His Father's bosom, that He might dupHcate Him in all 



THE TEMPTATION. I53 

I come not law to break, but to fulfil : 
For what is law but the Lawgiver's will ? 
Shall the commanded dare to command Him, 
And make Omnipotence the slave of whim ? 
The law is certain, all beyond is hid : 
We know what is forbidden is forbid. 

■** Satanic ' ifs * of atheistic doubt 
Declare the Devil, plainly point him out. 

'And is it so? And has He spoken this?' 
The very sound betrays the Serpent's hiss : 



ways]: I'And in their hands they thou dash thy foot against a stone, 
shall bear thee up, lest at any time 12 And Jesus answering said unto 



things, " do whatsoever things He doeth : for the Father loveth the Son 
and sheweth Him all things that He Himself doeth. . . . That all men 
should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father," John v : 19, 20, 23. 
The bare statement is the all-sufficient proof that the consciousness of 
His two-fold nature was never absent from Him : a single moment's 
divorce would have made that moment worthless to man's salvation ; for 
it was the Divine in conscious association with the Human that gave to 
the obedience of the latter its unspeakable value. Assuredly that aphor- 
ism of Greek wisdom, "Know Thyself,'' was not unfulfilled in Him, 
That He did not parade and publish this knowledge is no proof that he 
did not possess it. That He possessed it when He was twelve years old 
is incidentally set forth in a way which shows that it was not something to 
which He had just attained, but something which He always had. It 
preceded His official invesdture. The anointing of the Holy Ghost at 
His baptism had nothing to do with the fact nor the consciousness of the 
fact of His dual Selfhood. It seems to us a strange and preposterous 
notion, that the revelation of Himself to Himself needed to be delayed 



154 THE EVANGEL. 

A liar from the first, he puts his * Nay * 
Against Jehovah's ' Everlasting Yea : ' 
The stale old trick by which he cheated Eve, 
I know too well to let it Me deceive." 

Twice baffled, all unmasked, against him turned 
His every weapon, silenced, shamed and spurned, 
The Devil, that invincible high Fort 
Once more attempting, Him did then transport 
To some clear Pisgah's visionary top, 



him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt [Matth. iv : 5. Then the devil 

the Lord thy God, taketh him up into the holy city, and 



until His human nature should be strengthened to bear it ; and that it was 
necessary to wait thirty years for this. No good reason can be given why 
a child's receptivity, and tolerance too, of any form of divine disclosure 
should not be equal to a man's: indeed, we know that "things hidden 
from the wise and prudent are revealed imto babes." 

We hold firmly, that Christ's consciousness of the fact, that He was both 
God and Man, ran parallel with the fact itself, beginning at the beginning ; 
that the two natures were so adjusted the one to the other as not to trench 
on each other's proper freedom and independence ; that while there were 
not two wills but only one will, that will, in things human was human, and 
in things divine was divine. It was inevitable that there should be limita- 
tions to the human, else it would not be human, but while these limitations 
really existed they were, we insist, voluntary, self-imposed, capable of 
being set aside or transcended. That they never were transcended a hair's 
breadth in matters pertaining to the law of His subjection, stands to the 
glory of His free obedience, which being perfect, " brought in everlasting 
righteousness." And as this abstention involved a strenuous holding back 
of a present omnipotence, forming a miracle of restraint full of moral 
sublimity, it is easy to see how immensely the merit of that obedience was 



THE TEMPTATION. 15$ 

High as if heaven's supremest mountain prop, 
And showed Him thence, as on a map unfurled. 
The far outstretching kingdoms of the world : 
Their numbers, riches, glory, power and might, 
With all the instantaneousness of sight. 

" All these will I Thee give, for they are mine, 
Given to me, I swear to make them Thine 
On easy terms : Thou only need'st to fall 
And worship me, and Thou shalt have them all.' 

setteth him on a pinnacle of the be the Son of God, cast thyself 
temple, ^Andsaith unto him, If thou down: for it is written. He shall 

thereby enhanced. It must be a power above omnipotence that can keep 
it in check, and that power is duty, which is only another name for loyalty 
to law. This doth 

"preserve the stars from wrong; 
And the most ancient Heavens through it are fresh and strong." 

The grandeur of Christ's miracles was exceeded, if possible, by His 
refusal to work them. The glory of His power was excelled by His weak- 
ness. The dear hands that healed the sick and raised the dead were never 
more adorable than when nailed in their helplessness to the bitter cross. 
That long incognito, when, though conscious of His divine Sonship, He 
was content to pass as the son of Joseph the carpenter ; that grand silent 
waiting and hiding of His glory, without any manifestation of impatience, 
through thirty unrecorded years of poverty and toil, were as truly divine, 
and hardly less wonderful than the loud activities of the three ofidcial years 
that followed, when the whole land rang with the fame of His miracles and 
His matchless words of grace and wisdom. We know not what unimagined 
glory may he concealed in the shadow of the intolerable brightness of the 
inaccessible hght which shrouds the Eternal, but it may well be doubted 
whether there is any reflection of Godhead which surpasses the splendor 



156 THE EVANGEL. 

Thus Spake the Tempter, throwing off disguise, 
Spitting the venom of his blasphemies 
In the pure face of Him, whose fatal heel 
Crushing his head he now began to feel : 
Who — frowning dreadful wrath and withering scorn 
At an affront too shocking to be borne, 
His Godhead bursting forth in sudden blaze. 
Consuming '' ife," and smiting with amaze 
The cowering Fiend — gave thundering command, 
With high authority of voice and hand : 

give his angels charge concerning bear thee up, lest at at any time 
thee : and in their hands they shall thou dash thy foot against a stone. 



of that condescension which disdained not to stoop to the depths of man's 
degradation, to wear his form and garb, to adopt his stammering speech 
and learn his silly lore. Who would have thought that this " foolishness 
of God" should transcend all His other exhibitions, of which the grace 
shall form the theme for ceaseless celebration, when, "in supereminence 
of beatific vision " all the redeemed " shall clasp inseparable hands with 
joy and bliss in overmeasure forever ! " 

This property of voluntariness in regard to all that pertained to His 
humanity which we have here attributed to Christ ; the power at pleasure 
of emptying and disabling Himself; of subjecting Himself to the humbling 
restrictions, limitations, infirmities, not to say the ignorances belonging to 
the human condition ; of winking out of sight, if it be lawful to use so strong 
an expression in this connection. His essential Godhead, when the necessities 
of the role of the God-man demanded that the man only should appear ; 01 
personating without mask two characters, and of living without metamor- 
phosis two lives, at one and the same time — not that He was in anywise 9. 
two-faced Janus, but a Je^s, having only one face, with the same loving 
eyes, now beaming divinity, now wet with human tears — this voluntariness, 
we repeat, this free play of the pendulum of the will swinging between 



THE TEMPTATION. 157 

"Get thee behind Me, Satan ! get thee hence! 
Thou art to M-e an infinite offence. 
'T is writ, an irrepealable decree, 
Binding on all, and binding still on thee. 
Anarch and rebel, although first to swerve, 

' Thou shalt God worship and Him only serve ! ' 

" No man can serve two masters : vain the fraud 
Which halves the heart with Mammon and with 
God. 

This is God's world, not thine. To rnan is given 

■'Jesus said unto him, It is written, Luke iv : 5. And the devil, taking 

Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy him into a high mountain, shewed 
God.] him all the kingdoms of the world 



the finite and the infinite, with oscillations of such inconceivable sweep 
and swiftness, as to make it possible for Him to be God and to be man, to 
be in heaven and to be on the earth, in conscious alternation, a thousand 
times in the thousandth part of a second, is the explanation, we conceive, 
of half the mystery that perplexes us. And while we can never hope to 
untie the insoluble knot, to clear up all ambiguities and reconcile all 
contradictions, something is gained when we so far grasp it as to bring it 
a little nearer to us, and in some sort of relation to things lying within our 
sphere. 

The finite, while it hints, often helps to interpret the infinite ; but of 
course, where there is, as in the present case, an absolute uniqueness — 
seeing there is " but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one 
Jesus Christ, by whom are all things "—comparison must inevitably fail 
in some points. This impossibility of likening the Creator to anything 
created is the chief reason, we suppose, for the divine interdict against 
making " any graven image or likeness," for the base material counter- 
feit narrowing and degrading the idea of the infinite Original usurps its 



58 THE EVANGEL. 

The usufruct indeed, but not this even 
To thee is granted, bold intruding Thief! 
False claimant of the inalienable fief. 
Gotten, not given ; got by guile and guilt ; 
Plunder, not property. Never as thou wilt, 
But as God pleases, do thrones fall or rise : 
God does not mean to abdicate the skies. 



in a moment of time. ^And the will I give thee, and the glory of 
devil said unto him, All this power them : for that is delivered unto me ; 



place in the mind and terminates the worship ; and the same consideration 
is fitted doubtless to restrain the representations of a too rampant and 
irreverent rhetoric. The necessities of language may require us to speak 
as if there were two when there is only one ; and this constitutes the 
apology for the use of such terms as the Trinity, defined as " three persons 
in one God," but there is unquestionably an attendant peril which should 
put us upon our guard. 

There is no reason, however, why we should stumble at multiplicity in 
unity, when we have so much that answers to it in ourselves. Our one 
life we have already seen is three lives ; and we are in the familiar use of 
power not unlike that unspeakable voluntariness and versatility we have 
described. Standing in the blaze of noon, we look out on the divineness 
of earth and the infiniteness of heaven bathed in glorious sunhght, and, 
literally in the twinkling of an eye. by a simple act of the will which can 
be repeated many times in a minute, we are able to thrust it away and 
hide ourselves from it in the blackness of midnight darkness, and then 
restore ourselves to it — in a moment to put off this garment of light, and 
as quickly put it on. And there is not an hour of our lives that we do not 
illustrate in some way the mysterious parallelism of a double conscious- 
ness : two lines of thought running side by side, two sets of simultaneous 
and non-interfering volitions. 

An immense amount of dialectical skill has been wasted in the discus- 
sion of the question, whether Christ, in the language of the schoolmen, 
"was not able to sin" — non potest peccare, or "able not to s\n"— potest 



THE TEMPTATION. 1 59 

Great empires pass, and crumble into dust: 

He 's not unjust to punish the unjust : 

The disobedient that own thy sway, 

They perish by the laws they disobey. 

Thou canst transgress, but not annul the curse ; 

The wrath accumulates as thou grow'st worse. 

Though partial liberty to thee is given, 

»nd to whomsoever I will, I give it. all shall be thine. ^And Jesus an- 
^If thou therefore wilt worship me, swered and said unto him. Get thee 

non peccare. Assuming that He was both God and Man, we are not 
obliged to balance between the two propositions, but accept both as true. 
As God, the impossibility would be of the first kind ; as Man, of the sec- 
ond, for if as man there were not an abstract possibility of sinning, it is 
difficult to understand how there could be moral freedom, or reality in 
temptation. Doubtless the libertas was likewise a beata necessitas boni — 
"liberty" being only another name for " necessity," in the case of One 
"who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners;" and 
who stood alone among all the sons of Adam in being able to say, " The 
Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in Me." John .xiv : 30. 

But if there is difference of opinion in regard to His abihty to sin, there 
is none in regard to His ability to suffer. " He was a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief. " " He bare our griefs and carried our sorrows," as 
well as His own. " The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and 
with His stripes we are healed." It is said in immediate connection with 
His miracles of healing, "He bare our sicknesses." Does vicarious bear- 
ing mean potential transference ? Are we to understand that their mani- 
fold malignity passed over to Him ; that for every pang He relieved He 
suffered a pang? We read, Luke vi : 19, "And the v/hole multitude 
sought to touch Him ; for there went virtue out of Him, and He healed 
them all." It was thus that a certain woman, who had an issue of blood 
twelve years, was healed of that plague. Was the "virtue" a part of 
His life? Were addition and advantage to the healed, subtraction and 
loss to the Healer ? At the tomb of Lazarus, we are told, Jesus " groaned 
in the spirit and was troubled," and "Jesus wept." It surely was no com- 



l6o THE EVANGEL. 

Thou dragg'st a felon's chain in hell or heaven. 
" Heaven's laws are present in the heights of bliss^ 
And in the lowest depths of hell's abyss. 
He knows thy goings out, and comings in, 
And all thy tortuosities of sin. 
And to the pure He gives the knowledge too, 
How Right is always right, and True is true ; 

behind me, Satan ; for it is written, God, and him only shalt thou serve, 
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy [Matth. iv : 8, Again, the devil 

mon anguish that extorted groans and tears from the patient Son of God. 
Was it in testimony of the inexorableness of law, refusing to restore, 
without equivalent, what it had taken away ? In raising the dead to Ufe, 
did the sorrows of death compass Him, and the pains of hell get hold of 
Him ? If so, how it magnifies the grace ! how it exalts the compassion ! 
how it swells the debt ! 

Jesus had not been human if pain were not hateful to Him ; and there 
are no pains like the pains of hunger. The impatient appetite resents 
delay. The hungry stomach and the hungry blood send up agonizing 
cries for help. If help does not come speedily, the angry organs rise in 
fierce revolt, and all is clamor and uproar. There is nothing wrong in 
all this ; for these instincts are of God. Their rage is innocent. It is 
their duty to warn. Silence is betrayal. It is no impeachment of Christ's 
sinlessness that He hungered ; and that the blameless organs in their blind 
zeal, fearing for the imperiled fife, and singly intent upon quick rehef 
from the intolerable anguish, took sides for the time with the Tempter, 
and maintained ceaseless wrestle with the sternness of the denial of the 
higher life. The desire for bread was guiltless, and under other circum- 
stances its gratification had been lawful, nay, a duty. But not then. 
Why? 

Jesus saw why. It is true, the reason was not coarsely evident. It 
may have required fineness of vision to perceive it. But His eye was 
single and His body full of light. Weighing all acts in scales of infinite 
delicacy, an inclination of the beam so faint as to defy arithmetic to express 
it, was instantly discerned and sufficed for conduct. Not a spot must 



THE TEMPTATION. l6l 

How woe from guilt cannot dissevered be, 
More than thyself can be divorced from thee ; 
How Nature echoes what the Scripture saith, 
Sin's hire and wages are eternal death. 

" Foul trader in men's souls! though skilled to 
cheat, 
Cunning of fence, and mighty in deceit ; 

taketh him up into an exceeding the kingdoms of the world, and the 
high mountain, and sheweth him all glory of them ; ^And saith unto him, 

stain His absolute whiteness. So high was the requirement, that even 
the imperceptible tremble of the jarred earth, caused by the tread of a 
passing foot, must not be allowed to disturb the perfect poise of His 
human innocence. We know that two lines, separated here by the diam- 
eter of the earth's orbit, long before they reach the nearest of the fixed 
stars, blend and become as one : and so, a deviation from rectitude so 
slight that to the blurred vision of sinful eyes there may seem to be none 
at all, would, running through eternity, become an infinite divergence. 

Nothing can be more vulgar than to suppose that the power of tempta- 
tion is in proportion to bigness — that to make a big temptation there must 
be a big object. To natures cold, calculating and already depraved, and 
that merely count the cost of the risks to be run, this may be so ; but to 
the pure, and even to men of moderate virtue, it is just the reverse. The 
danger is in minuteness. What trips the good man is the trivial and 
unseen. It is the pebble that lies buried in the foot-path, over which he 
stumbles and falls, not great rocks and precipices. The snare is laid for 
him in the ground and the trap is covered. " The snare of the E)f^vil " is 
concealed, otherwise it were no snare. " Surely in vain the net is spread 
in the sight of any bird." The infection of which men sicken and die is 
borne on " heaven's sweetest air." 

The first half of Mr. Beecher's chapter on the Temptation, in his Life 
of Christ, we admire, but not the exegetical half. This amazes us. By 
way of disparaging the literal, he strangely remarks, " How shght to a 
divine nature would be the temptation of eating bread, and how harmless 



l62 THE EVANGEL. 

And, though thy dupes be more than tongue can 

tell, 
Tripped by thy foot each falling into hell ; 
Though shrined in temples, and though throned 

in state. 
Thy doom is sure, nor hast thou long to wait. 
Soon dispossessed, thou shalt like lightning fall 



All these things will I give thee, if i" Then saith Jesus unto him, Get 
thou wilt fall down and worship me. thee hence, Satan : for it is written, 



the act solicited." Taken in this sense, he thinks the temptation were 
puerile : to make it vital and genuine, it must be understood in this wise : 
"Be the patron of physical thrift! Teach men inventions! Multiply 
harvests! Be a great civilizer ! Thus make yourself glorious ! " The 
literal, he thinks, "renders Satan a wretched and puerile creature" 
throughout ; whereas, to make it possible for him to tempt such an One 
as Jesus, he would need to possess some "grandeur of nature." It may 

be, 

"The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman," 

and possibly a scholar and philosopher to boot but were he of the pom- 
pous type that this supposition makes him, he would be, beyond all ques- 
tion, an insufferable prig — very " grand" to be sure, and very admirable 
in his way, but as a devil no longer dangerous. 

Nothing can be clearer than the temptation in this form were no temp- 
tation at all. It would have neither force nor fitness. In the first place, 
it is wholly inconceivable that the Son of God, " the Lamb slain from 
before tfte foundation of the world," should ever have debated the ques- 
tion either with Satan or Himself, whether He should not turn aside from 
His heavenly mission of saving souls, to make harvests grow, for that He 
could have done without leaving he.-iven — but admitting the fact that after 
having revolved the matter from all eternity. He was still so far undecided 
that a chance suggestion that the latter would be better than the former 
was calculated to make Him pause, even then, inasmuch as the only escape 
from His perplexity would be found in a further exercise of the intellect 



THE TEMPTATION. 163 

From heaven and rule usurped, and over all 
I in My own and in My Father's right, 
Will reign forevermore in thy despite. 
Not under thee, nor by thee, as thou feign'st, 
But over thee, above thee, and against : 
For to destroy thy works it was I came ; 
To spoil the Spoiler, and My own reclaim ; 



Thou shalt worship the Lord thy Luke x : 18. And he said unto 

Ood, and him only shalt thou serve.] them, I beheld Satan as lightning 



iind a calm weighing of the pros and cons, it is difficult to see how this 
process should contain any element of temptation any more than the de- 
monstration of a proposition in Euclid ; or how its settlement either way 
would help the present distress. Must the horrible cravings of hunger go 
unappeased until the bountiful harvests destined to bless the future shall 
have time to grow? 

The author's statement, " How slight to a divine nature would be the 
temptation of eating bread," must mean, if it means anything, that hun- 
ger in Christ was unlike hunger in other men ; otherwise the temptation 
were not slight, but the strongest conceivable. It is the irresistibleness of 
the instinct, that measures the force of the temptation. A single loaf to 
the starving, were more than the overflowing granaries of the world to the 
full. Its power does not depend on character, but is the same in all ; 
which can hardly be said of the other appetites, although natural. To 
promote thrift and multiply harvests in high miraculous fashion were not 
to be " tempted in all points like as we are," but to be tempted in a man- 
ner peculiar to Himself. Christ occupied Himself with universals : 

" Appetite, that universal wolf," 

extends to animals. The silly fish in their blind greed snatch at the 
baited hook. Eve coveted and ate. Esau sold his birthright for a mess 
of pottage. Israel lusted in the wilderness. The slaves of appetite, the 
glutton and the drunkard, perish heaps upon heaps. Death holds per- 
petual carnival because of fleshly lusts that war against the soul. The 



1 64 THE EVANGEL. 

Reconquer earth, too long enslaved by thee, 
And from hard bondage set the nations free. 
By heavenly power, not military might, 
Avenge the cause of violated Right ; 
And captive Truth, immured in dungeons long, 
Deliver from the tyranny of Wrong. 

fall from heaven. Son of God was manifested, that he 

iJohniii:8. For this purpose the might destroy the works of the devil. 



temptation, so far from being shght and puerile, was full of devilish power 
and more than Caducean cunning. There was not only an outer voice 
that said " Eat !" but an inner voice likewise. If the outer was the Devil's, 
the inner might easily be mistaken for God's. Why was the hunger, sus- 
pended so long, not suspended longer, if the Father did not mean His 
Child should have bread? This " lust of the flesh," in itself innocent, 
drawn out toward innocent food, kept up an incessant pleading. It was 
not easy to say Nay. In the stamp of His foot was the decision of a God. 
It was the down planting of no vulnerable heel of Achilles, otherwise the 
fang of the serpent had surely pierced it. 

Satan always adapts his temptation. He knows his man, his strength 
and his weakness; his times and his seasons; all the avenues of ap- 
proach — viri molles aditus et tempora — and fails not to take advantage 
of any momentary softness of the yielding heart. He throws open doors 
of opportunity. If there is a spark he fans it. If there is a desire he 
feeds it. If there is a bias he fools the bent. He triumphs in a slip as 
much as in a fall. Striking hands with the sensualist, he , 

" Sets woman in his eye and in his walk :" 

but spiritual and religious natures he tempts in quite another fashion. He 
transforms himself into an angel of light, and is a mighty textualist ; con- 
triving however with devihsh ingenuity, by suppression or substitution, 
"to turn the truth of God into a lie," and make it serve all the purposes 
of falsehood and betrayal : his end being gained, if he can thus convert 
the sobriety of a humble trust in the faithfulness of a divine promise — 



THE TEMPTATION. 165 

*' For SO the promise runs, and God decrees : 
The traveling immensity of the seas 
Th' abundant tribute of all lands shall bring, 
And the whole world acknowledge Me its King. 
All gathered into one, all strife shall cease. 
One empire only, and that Empire, Peace. 



Ps. Ixxii : 7. In his days shall the also from sea to sea, and from the 

righteous flourish ; and abundance river unto the ends of the earth. . , 

of peace so long as the moon en- i" The kings of Tarshish and of the 

dureth. ^He shall have dominion isles shall bring presents : the kings 



which gives assurance of angelic care and guardianship to those who walk 
in the known, travelled, safe, albeit rugged "ways " of God's command- 
ments — into the fanatical extravagance and vain ostentation of a pre- 
•sumptuous confidence or arrogant claiming, based on the fallacy of a 
■divine favoritism and the foolish hope of an exceptional immunity, should 
one fling himself down from a height, with eyes closed to the fact, that a 
precipice is perdition, not " a way " — non est via hcec sedruina. 

Christ was proof against the inveiglement. Not that the thing was too 
hard for Him any more than the changing of stones into bread. He who 
walked on the storm-tossed lake, unquestionably could have "cast Him- 
self down " without harm. If the water supported Him, so would the air. 
The temptation had been admirably suited to Peter, and to vulgar saints 
generally, who would fly if they could. Their hesitation, it is to be feared, 
would have respected less the propriety of the attempt than its safety. 
They might remember that violations of natural law have not usually 
prospered, and so have been restrained ; but if the lust of the flesh is 
powerful so is the lust of the eyes — the desire to dazzle, to hear men say. 
Behold ! — to be the rocket of a moment, if the fates deny more — the con- 
cupiscence of vain show, of fair looks and outside appearance, of seeming 
and not being — a fatal levity, the prolific parent of pious pretence in end- 
less protean manifestation ; of the pharisaism both of the Judean and 
Simon Stylites type ; of "the pride that apes humility," exemplified now 
in the Pope's ostentatious annual washing of the feet of twelve beggars, 
when the act is neither necessary nor natural ; now in the vanity that wraps 



l66 THE EVANGEL. 

My Kingdom, unlike other kingdoms, stands 
In might of love, not multitude of hands. 
It needs not armies to support the wall ; 
Strong in itself, the building cannot fall. • 
One loyal heart suffices, one alone. 
For all the state and glory of a throne. 



of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Rev. xi : 15. The kingdoms of 

Matth. xxviii : 18. All power is this world are become the kingdoms 

given unto me in heaven and in of our Lord and of his Christ ; and 

earth. he shall reign for ever and ever. 



itself in some preposterous garb, and goes about parading its singulari- 
ties, tenacious of its rags and its sordidness, though water be never so 
plenty and decent clothing can be had for the asking, of which the found- 
ers and earliest followers of the various mendicant orders of friars are the 
illustration ; and now in other ways, not peculiar to Rome, but common 
to it and Protestant Christendom. 

How instructive it is to find, that leaving us an example that we should 
follow His steps, Christ never departs from the highway of ordinary life, 
but humbly treads the paths we tread, leading not over precipices, but 
only where it is safe and practicable for human feet. In the homeliness 
of His example consists its imitableness ; and being homely, it affords 
no room for vain glory. Its commonness, while it excludes the miraculous 
and impossible, excludes likewise the abnormal and exceptional. Both 
His teaching and practice being at an infinite remove from the outre and 
fantastical — the eccentric Quixotism and moonstruck vagaries of a bur- 
lesqued Christianity. 

In that last triumph which completed the circle, and "ended all the 
temptation," Christ did not overcome the Wicked One by other means 
than just those by which young men who are strong overcome — namely, 
by the word of God abiding in them, and by doing the will of God. 
I John ii : 13-17. Like the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, the 
pride of life is not of the Father but of the world, and is a universal pas- 
sion. The poor wish to be rich, the rich to be richer. Nor is the lust of 
dominion confined to the Alexanders, the Caesars and the Napoleons. 



THE TEMPTATION. 167 

My Kingdom comes like the on-coming dawn ; 
Enough ! as night departs, so thou, Begone ! 

The Devil heard, nor dared to disobey- 
That powerful word, so slunk ashamed away. 
Then angels min'strant brought Him food to eat ; 



Luke iv : 13. And when the devil departed from him for a season, 
had ended all the temptation, he [Matth. iv : 11. Then the devil 



None are so low in the social scale as not to have their petty ambitions. 
Their crawling servility needs only opportunity to be converted into the 
full-blown insolence of power. 

Among the Twelve there arose a strife which should be the greatest. 
The mother of the sons of Zebedee, James and John, at their prompting 
(so ai least the ten thought) came, bowing down, and asking Jesus that 
her two sons should sit one on His right hand and one on His left in His 
kingdom. They knew not what they asked. They saw only one side — ■ 
the pride of power, but not its perils and responsibilities. It is very pos- 
sible in them the egotism of rule was associated with a specious pretext 
of wishing to serve thereby the ends of patriotism and religion. They 
would like to sit as judge, executing divine laws, and if need be, divine 
vengeance likewise. The same fierce spirit which made them anxious to 
command fire to come down from heaven to consume the inhospitable 
Samaritans, would lead them to make short work with the Romans, as 
well as malignants among their own countrymen. They would make it 
appear that it was not in vain that they were called " Boanerges, the Sons 
of Thunder." To thunder they would conceive to be their chief business. 
What eager snatchingsat Heaven's thunderbolts ! And what angry hurl- 
in gs of them, as afterward by the self-styled successors of St, Peter, 
" sitting in the temple of God as God ! " They knew not what manner 
of spirit they were of. Later they learned that humility is rank ; that 
the least is greatest and the greatest least ; but at this time their self-igno- 
rance and self-conceit would have made them fit tools for the devil's 
work. 

Their temptation was substantially Christ's. It is die universal one 



l68 THE EVANGEL. 

And served Him, kneeling at His blessed feet, 
But food diviner and more heavenly choice, 
Was the sweet witness of His Father's voice : 



'' My Well Beloved ! My Chosen ! My Well Tried 1 
Found whole and perfect on Thy human side. 
Dear always, dear as Man, and as man's Friend, 



leaveth him, and, behold, angels Mark i : 13. And the angels min- 
came and ministered unto him. istered unto him.] 



that besets all who covet worldly power and success. Mammon offers his 
ghttering bribes to those who will fall down and worship him. Many are 
quite sure that they can serve both God and Mammon. The sons of God 
join themselves to the daughters of men because they are fair. Then 
Satan is honorable at a bargain. He is always wiUing to give a quid pro 
quo. His proposal to Christ was a partnership of advantage. "Let 
there be an alliance between us ; and let it be called by all means a ' Holy 
Alliance,' for holy is a good word! Let the Church be joined to the 
State ! If your right arm be spiritual, let your left be secular ! Let the 
word be seconded by the sword ! Be a Mahomet ! Be a Pope ! " 

If Christ overcame the temptation, this can hardly be said of the vast 
majority of those who have since borne His name. Many virtually say, 
Let us do evil that good may come ; the end justifies the means. Christ's 
doctrine is, Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. The 
wages of sin is death. No man can afford to be unjust — no number of 
men; no state; no nation. Nothing is so expensive as injustice. There 
is no half way between Right and Wrong; in all cases where these are at 
issue. Compromise is of the Devil. It settles nothing. Divine laws still 
operate. So Expediency, meaning thereby something different from 
Right and better than Right. It is a word to juggle with. None is more 
potent. It is as necessary to the politician, in church or state, as the wand 
to the enchanter. It is suited to his character as portrayed in the Latin 



THE TEMPTATION. 169 

Fulfilling and fulfilling to the end : 

My other Adam ! standing where he fell ; 

Trusting, not lusting, My own Israel ! " 

sentence : Politicus est homo quis servat Deo, ut non offetidat diabolum. In 
no event is the Devil to be ofiended, though God may. In conclusion 

let us believe: 

" Unless above himself he can 

Erect himself, how poor a thing is man ! " 



" The Tripartite Nature of Man, Spirit, Soul and Body," is the title 01 
a work by Rev. J. B. Heard, M. A. He regards such passages asThess. 
V : 23, and Heb. iv : 12, as authoritatively teaching that man is threefold, 
consisting of spirit (pneuma) ; soul (psyche), constituting the self or ego; 
and body (soma). The early Greek fathers were trichotomists : but the 
doctrine fell into disfavor, by the abuse of the distinction by Origen and 
Apollinaris. The latter denied to Christ the human pneuma, putting the 
Divine Pneuma or the Holy Ghost in its place. Tertullian maintained 
that soul and spirit could not be separated, and were convertible terms ; 
and since the time of Augustine the dichotomy or the two-fold division of 
man's nature into body and soul (man being the fibula duarum naturarum, 
the clasp which unites the spiritual and sensual nature) has been the pre- 
vailing doctrine. 

But the trichotomy of Paul, we are told, ought not to be confounded 
with that of Plato. The distribution is different. The reason or vov<:, 
to which Plato assigns the supreme place, corresponding to the pneuma, 
in Paul's psychology forms a part of the psyche or soul ; while the pneu- 
ma or spirit is a discovery of revelation, unknown to Plato. He, knowing 
nothing of spiritual-mindedness, could know nothing of the organ upon 
which it depends. The new birth is the quickening of the pneuma, which 
in the natural man is dormant or dead. The soul is capable of existing 
in union with th.-; body apart from the spirit ; or in union with the spirit 
apart from the body. The first is exemplified in animals ; the last in de- 
parted saints before the resurrection, which is not that of a natural or 
psychical body, but a spiritual or pneumatical body. If the distinction 
is as important as the author makes it, how is it that it was left to 
doubtful inference and not explicitly declared ? Dichotomists, so called, 
recognize the spiritual nature of man ; and all beyond this would seem to 
be more speculative than practical. 



M 



XIII. 



THE FIRST DISCIPLES, 



EAN WHILE the great Proclaimer — ever 



since 

Th' attesting Skies did sensibly evince 
Jesus to be the Son of God, the King 
Whose gracious coming he was heralding — 
With rapt and radiant brow supreme o'er doubt, 
Had burned to manifest and point Him out; 
Not as expected or as drawing near, 
But present with them, and already here. 
Finding Him snatched mysteriously away, 
He crossed the Jordan to Bethabara, 
And there abode baptizing — felt the thrill 
Of his Lord's touch repeated in him still ; 



John i : 19. And this is the sent priests and Levites from Jeru- 
record of John, when the Jews salem to ask him, Who art thou? 



THE FIRST DISCIPLES. 171 

Effecting change in eye and voice and mien, 
At each remembrance of that wondrous scene. 

When reached Jerusalem th' astounding news. 
The alarmed and jealous Council of the Jews 
Sent Priests and Levites — being Pharisees 
The flimsy veil of whose hypocrisies 
John had so rudely torn — to ask by what 
Authority he acted. " I am not," 
He plainly said, " the Christ." 

" Who art thou then ? 

» 

Art thou returned Elijah?" 

Answering the men 
In absolute respect to verity, 
And their intended sense : " I am not he : 
No chariot of fire along the track 



20 And he confessed, and denied then? Art thou EHas?* And 
not ; but confessed, I am not the he saith, I am not. Art thou that 
Christ. 2iAnd they asked him, What prophet? And he answered, No. 



* It was the prevaiUng opinion, founded on Malachi iv : 5, that Elijah 
would return to earth. His translation must have taken place near the 
spot where John was then baptizing. This circumstance, with John's 
personal resemblance in dress, habits of life and character, would natu- 
rally suggest the challenge addressed to him: " AFt thou Elijah?" In 
the sense they intended he was not, and he answered accordingly. Elijah, 
like Jephthah, was a native of Gilead and of the tribe of Gad. 



172 THE EVANGEL. 

By which he went to heaven hath brought him back.* 

" Art thou that Prophet ? " 

''No." 

" Why then baptize ? 

'* I get my right directly from the skies. 
Mine is to cry : ' Make straight the way ; ' afford 
A level, smooth, clear passage for the Lord ! 
I come, baptizing for this end alone, 
To publish, witness Him, and make Him known. 
One stands among you whom ye do not know ; 
Nor would you, haply, if I Him should show. 
'T is He of whom I said, and say once more, 
Though coming after, is preferred before, 
For that He was before me — honored much 
If I the latchet of His shoes might touch." 



22 Then they said unto him, Who baptizest thou then, if thou be not 

art thou ? that we may give an an- that Christ, nor Elias, neither that 

swer to them that sent us. What Prophet? 26john answered them, 

sayest thou of thyself? He said, I saying, I baptize with water : but 

am the voice of one crying in the there standeth one among you, 

wilderness, Make straight the way whom ye know not ; "'He it is, who 

of the Lord, as said the prophet coming after me is preferred before 

Esaias. 2^And they which were sent me, whose shoe's latchet I am not 

were of the Pharisees. 25 And they worthy to unloose. 2:iThese things 

asked him, and said unto him, Why were done in Bethabara beyond 



THE FIRST DISCIPLES. 173 

Next day as John, with sweet and glad sur- 
prise, 
Saw Jesus coming in meek lowly wise, 
He, pointing, said : 

" Behold, for so ye may, 
The Lamb of God, which takes all sin away ! 
This, this is He, the high, the peerless One, 
Avouched of God to be His Darling Son. 
I saw the Spirit like a dove descend. 
And on Him rest : and He that did me send 
In water to baptize, gave this for sign — 
I knew Him by that witnessing divine." 



Jordan, where John was baptizing.* be made manifest to Israel, there- 

29 The next day John seeth Jesus fore am I come baptizing with wa- 

coming unto him, and saith, Behold ter. 32And John bare record, saying, 

the Lamb of God, which taketh I saw the Spirit descending from 

away the sin of the world ! soThis heaven like a dove, and it abode 

is he of whom I said. After me com- upon him. ^s^nd I knew him not : 

eth a man which is preferred before but he that sent me to baptize witli 

me ; for he was before me. ^lAnd I water, the same said unto me. Upon 

knew him not: but that he should whom thou shalt see the Spirit de- 



* It is not said that Christ was baptized at Bethabara (or Bethany as 
some prefer). We think He was baptized at the lower ford of the Jor- 
dan, opposite Jericho, on the western side. All tradition is in favor of 
this. During the forty days that Christ spent in the wilderness, it is 
probable that John crossed over, and proceeded higher up to the middle 
ford, and that the Bethbara of the Old Testament is the same as Betha- 
bara of the New, It is inevitable that changes should have taken place 
since then in the steepness of the banks and the depth of the stream. 



174 THE EVANGEL. 

Thus plainly pointed out to all the crowd, 
Returning Victor o'er the Tempter proud, 
Greatest of Conquerors, declared to be 
Messiah, Son of God, what do we see? 
The most, alas ! too sensual to receive. 
Wholly reject, or only half believe ; 
Dupes of appearances and outward things : 

Can this wayfarer be the King of Kings ? 
Coming alone, and dressed in mean attire. 
Without the trappings power and rank require ? 

Ardent and sanguine as deep natures are, 
John looked to see them worship Him afar ; 
Rush forth to meet Him, and His footsteps throng, 
And shout hosannas as He passed along; 
With reverent lips to kiss His garment's hem, 
Sure that the pebble was a priceless gem ; 
That 't was His kingly nature made Him King, 
Not hoop of gold or such like paltry thing. 

He came that all men might through Him believe: 
How did it shame him, then, surprise and grieve, 

scending and remaining on him, the Holy Ghost. 3* And I saw, and bare 
same is he which baptizeth with the record that this is the Son of God. 



THE FIRST DISCIPLES. 1 75 

To find discredited his faithful word, 

And his own followers stumbling at the Lord ! 

As on the morrow John there stood, and talked 
With two of His disciples, Jesus walked 
All unattended with slow pace abroad : 
'' Behold," the Baptist said, '' the Lamb of God! 
The all-atoning Sacrifice for sin, 
For so the Spirit prophecies within. 
The past is past ; what has been has sufficed ; 
Moses fulfilled and finished is in Christ. 

*■'■ I see refraction of those blessed rays. 
Which dim the lustre of ten thousand days ; 
Purpureal splendors of the setting Light, 
The sky all blood and crimson to the sight ; 
Brief gloom, and then a long bright day succeeds, 
In which no altar smokes, no victim bleeds. 
Because a veil, half-hiding, intervenes, 
I know the meaning better than the means." 

The first to feel the Heavenly Magnet draw, 

"Again the next day after, John s^ And looking upon Jesus as he 
stood, and two of his disciples ; walked, he saith. Behold the Lamb 



176 THE EVANGEL. 

These two disciples. Jesus turned and saw 
Them following ; and so, with aspect meek, 
Addressed them, saying, "What is it ye seek? " 

O happy seekers ! seeking ye shall find 

How good He is, how gracious and how kind ! 

'' Rabbi ! " they said, " Where lodgest Thou ? " And 
He, 
Their hospitable Lord, said, '^ Come and see ! " 

His looks beamed welcome no less than His speech : 
O happy learners, having Him to teach ! 
O wondrous stoop of grace, to condescend 
To entertain the humblest as a friend ! 
O sweet beginnings of perpetual grace, 
Inviting sinners, " Come to My embrace ! 
Come, all ye weary, burdened and distressed ; 
Come unto Me, and I will give you rest ! " 

No wonder favored thus they lengthened stay, 
Drinking His words the remnant of the day. 

of God ! 3'?And the two disciples being interpreted, Master,) where 

heard him speak, and they followed dwellest thou ? • sResaith unto them» 

Jesus. 38Xhen Jesus turned, and Come and see. They came and saw 

saw them following, and saith unto where he dwelt, and abode with him 

them. What seek ye? They said that day: for it was about the tenth 

unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, hour. 40One of the two which heard 



THE FIRST DISCIPLES. 177 

One, Andrew, Simon's brother, was ; and one 
The loving and the loved Apostle John. 
Andrew found Simon : " Told of John before 
We've found Messias, and need seek no more. 
Come, go with me, and not a moment waste ! '* 
Then both together went in ardent haste. 
But Jesus needed none to tell Him, who 
It was that Andrew brought, because He knew, 
So gave omniscient salutation : 

" Thou 
Art Simon, son of Jonas, and though now 
Impulsive, rash, not proof 'gainst sudden shock, 
Thou shalt be Peter, stable as a rock." 



John speak, and followed him, was xvi : 15. He saith unto them, But 
Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. whom say ye that I am ? i^^^nd Si- 
^1 He fin^t findeth his own brother mon Peter answered and said. Thou 
Simon, and Saith unto him, We have art the Christ, the Son of the living 
found the Messias, which is, being God, ^'^ And Jesus answered and said 
interpreted, the Christ. 42And he unto him, Blessed art thou. Bar- 
brought him to Jesus. And when jona : for flesh and blood hath not 
Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art revealed it unto thee, but my Father 
Simon, the son of Jona: thou shalt which is in heaven. i^And I say 
be called Cephas, which is by inter- also unto thee, Thou art Peter 
pretation, Astone (Trerpor). [Matt. (niTfjog-)* and upon this rock 



* It is admitted that what follows would be more appropriate farther on, 
but we have our reasons for introducing it here. The interpretation here 
given is the only one consistent with Scripture and common sense. That 
Peter understood the words of Our Lord in this sense and no other, we 
have the proof under his own hand, i Peter ii : 4, 5 : "To whom coming, 
12 



178 THE EVANGEL. 

" Thou art the Christ, th' undoubted Son of God! " 

" Thou sayest well, My Rock, the truth is broad, 
And rock-like ; standing there, thou shalt not fail, 
Not Hell itself against thee can prevail. 
Yea, I will build My church on this, on thee, 
And all who testify the same of Me. 
I call thee Peter, and I build thereon ; 
But all are Peters built or built upon. 
All who believe are ' Stones ' fixed in the wall. 



( TTerpa) I will build my church ; and built upon the found?, jon of the 
the gates of hell shall not prevail apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
against it. [Eph. ii : 50. And are himself being the chief corner-stone. 



as unto a Living Stone, disallowed indeed of men but chosen of God and 
precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy 
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus 
Christ." Evidently Peter's special architectural use and importance con- 
sisted, like that of the other apostles, in being one of the Founders of the 
Christian Theocracy. As a Founder he could have no successor ; for th3 
foundation once laid that is the end. " Other foundation can no man lay 
than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (i Cor. iii : 11). 

The words, " Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church," 
do not prove the papacy. There never was a more preposterous non sequi- 
tur. " Diameters of the solar system and sidereal orbits " would not fill 
up the interspace between the premises and the conclusion. There is a 
logic which secures consent if not conviction — the logic of the rack and 
stake, but that at present is unavailable. If the keys committed to Peter 
have passed into the hands of Pius IX. we are sorry for it. The old man 
just now is very angry, and if he is allowed to have his own way we are 
sure to fare badly. But he is fooled by his infaUibility. He thunders, and 
no one cares. 



THE FIRST DISCIPLES. 179 

Supporting and supported one and all. 
I, underlying, rising in the whole, 
The vital spirit and the shaping soul. 

**The keys of heaven I'll give thee to unlock: 
Not to sit jailor, and the entrance block ; 
A greedy janitor at Heaven's open gate, 
To sell Heaven's bounty at the dearest rate ; 
Frustrate Heaven's freeness by demands of pay, 
And dole as merchandise the light of day. 

" I'll send thee forth, My envoy to the race. 
To state fixed terms of amnesty and grace ; 
To bind or loose, remit sins or retain, 
As men accept the pardon or disdain. 
What I have taught thee, that thyself shall teach ; 
Thy words be but the echo of My speech ; 
Thou shalt not add thereto, nor take therefrom : 
My message spoke, let messenger be dumb ! 

I Cor. iii : 11. For other foundation xviii : 18. Verily I say unto you 

can no man lay than that is laid. , . (my disciples), Whatsoever ye shall 

21 Let no man glory in men : for all bind on earth shall be bound in 

things are yours, 22 Whether Paul, heaven, and whatsoever ye shall 

Apollos or Peter.] Matt, xvi : 19. loose on earth shall be loosed in 

And I will give unto thee the keys heaven. John xx : 22. And when 

of the kingdom of heaven : and he had said this, he breathed on 

whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth them, and said. Receive ye the Holy 

shall be loosed in heaven. Matt. Ghost : Whosesoever sins ye remit, 



l80 THE EVANGEL. 

" Inspired apostle and ambassador 
Is instrument and voice, and nothing more ; 
Inspired to publish first, and spread abroad 
Th' unchanging Gospel of the grace of God : 
* Repent ! Believe ! and thou shalt mercy find! * 
Heaven's glad announcement made to all mankind. 

*' This is the whole : Belief doth break the chain, 
And Unbelief doth rivet and retain. 
The power to bind and loose to Truth is given : 
The mouth that speaks it, is the mouth of Heaven. 
The power, which in a sense belongs to none, 
Thus understood belongs to every one. 
If thou the law of pardon canst declare, 
So, too, can every hearer everywhere. 
The pledge of thy apostleship this, then : 
Outside of Truth, thou art as other men. 
Thy office has no thaumaturgic force 



they are remitted unto them ; and you alway, even unto the end of the 

whosesoever sins ye retain they are world. Amen. Acts ii : 37. Now 

retained. Matt, xxviii : 19. Go ye when they heard this, they were 

therefore, and teach all nations, pricked in their heart, and said unto 

baptizing them in the name of the Peter and to the rest of the apostles, 

Father, and of the Son and of the Men and brethren, what shall we 

Holy Ghost: ■^''Teaching them to do? 3><Then Peter said unto them, 

observe all things whatsoever I have Repent, and be baptized every one 

commanded you : and lo, I am with of you, in the name of Jesus Christ 



THE FIRST DISCIPLES. l8l 

To turn fixed laws of spirit from their course. 
Thou can'st not break th' infernal spell within — 
An exorcist of devils, not of sin. 

'' The fundamental Truth man could not reach, 

Apostles testify and prophets preach. 

All Truth is public, there's no private Truth ; 

The same whoever utters it, forsooth. 

It owes its high prerogative to none. 

It shines for all, as shines the blessed sun-;- 

It shines in all, who do not shut it out 

By dungeon doors of unbelief and doubt. 

To shine, it does not ask, O far from it, 

For hierarchal privilege and permit. 

Rabbi and priest may be chained down to lies, 

And babes and sucklings winged to mount the 
skies." 

On the day following, after night of sleep, 
The Heavenly Shepherd, seeking His lost sheep, 

for the remission of sins, iii : 19. salvation in any other : for there is 

Repent ye therefore, and be con- none other name under heaven giv- 

verted, that your sins may be blot- enamongmen.whereby we must be 

ted out. iv : 11. This is the stone saved. xx:2i. Testifying, ?. ^. Paul, 

which was set at nought of you both tojews and Greeks, repentance 

builders, which is become the head toward God, and faith toward our 

of the corner. 12 Neither is there Lord Jesus Christ.] ^s The day 



l82 THE EVANGEL. 

Finds Philip, on His way to Galilee, 

And utters gentle summons : " Follow Me! " — 

Philip was of Bethsaida, the same 

Lake-town whence Andrew and whence Peter 

came — 
And the found Philip finds Nathanael too, 
(Whose patronymic was Bar-tholomew) : 
Touched by the Primal Magnet, he thereby 
Becomes a magnet ; magnets multiply ; 
Brother draws brother straightway ; friend draws 

friend ; 

Attracted and attracting to the end. 

Through the whole lump swift spreads the holy 

leaven ; 
The fire, new kindled, blazes up to heaven. 

Philip with eager speech : ''We Him have found 
Of whose great coming prophecies abound, 
Jesus of Nazareth ! " 

Nathanael saith : 



following Jesus would go forth into Nathanael, and saith unto him, We 
Galilee, and findeth Phihp, and have found him, of whom Moses in 
saith unto him, follow me. ^■^ Now the law, and the prophets, did write, 
Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Jo- 
Andrew and Peter. ^5 Philip findeth seph. ^e And Nathanael said unto 



THE FIRST DISCIPLES. 183 

*' Can any good thing come from Nazareth ? " 

" Not thine this old reproach, nor worthy thee, 
Candid Nathanael, Come with me and see ! " 

" Behold," said Jesus, with a gracious smile, 
"An Israelite indeed, devoid of guile." 

" Whence know'st Thou me?" 

" Ere Philip called thee, then. 
Mine eye, outrunning Philip, saw thee, when 
Thou wast beneath the fig tree." 

Thence alone 
Each wrestling doubt was instantly o'erthrown. 

'' Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King 
Of Israel, Thou knowest everything ! " 

O truth is easy, and the hght shines clear 
In hearts kept open, honest and sincere ! 

him. Can there any good thing come thou me ? Jesus answered and said 

out of Nazareth ? Phihp said unto unto him, Before that Phihp called 

him, Come and see. ^Tjesus saw thee, when thou wast under the fig 

Nathanael coming to him, and saith tree, I saw thee. 46 Nathanael an- 

of him. Behold an Israelite indeed, swered and saith unto him, Rabbi, 

in whom is no guile, ^s^athanael thou art the Son of God ; thou art 

saith unto him, Whence knowest the King of Israel, sojesus answered 



1 84 THEE V ANGEL. 

Complaint and clamor come from thankless greed, 
Where proof is ample and exceeds the need. 

^' Believest thou, because I said to thee, 
I saw thee in thy sacred privacy 
Under the fig-tree's shade ? Thy faith doth please ; 
Therefore thou shalt see greater things than these. 
Amen ! amen ! I say to all of you. 
Ye shall see Heaven opened to your view ; 
And angels flying, swift as angels can. 
To do the bidding of the Son of Man." 



and said unto him, Because I said say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see 

unto thee, I saw thee under the fig heaven open, and the angels of God 

tree, believest thou ? thou shalt see ascending and descending upon the 

greater things than these, si And Son of man. 
he saith unto him. Verily, verily, I 



XIV. 

THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 

ON the third day, arrived in Galilee, 
Jesus refused not offered courtesy 
To Him and His disciples, to attend 
The nuptials of a kinsman or a friend. 
In Cana, Nazareth not far. How fit 
That He who marriage gave should sanction it ! 

Mary was there, half hostess and half guest, 
Mother of Jesus. Never mother blest 
As she had been through thirty heavenly years ; 
Or since that first strange hour her startled ears 
Heard angel salutation of sweet Hail! 
And the Shekinah passed behind the veil 
Of her humanity ; and she understood 

John ii : I . And the third day Gahlee ; and the mother of Jesus 
there was a marriage in Cana of was there: ^And both Jesus was 



l86 THE EVANGEL. 

The truth of her miraculous motherhood ; 
And felt the mystery within her stir 
Of a new life that should be born of her ; 
Destined to bear, she heard with spirit awed, 
High appellation of the Son of God. 

Events of yesterday were not more fresh 
Than those attendant on the Word made flesh : 
Proof upon proof, before and after birth, 
Witnessed the miracle to heaven and earth. 
Well she remembered — how could she forget ? — 

called, and his disciples, to the mar- They have no wine. ''Jesus saith 
riage. ^Andwhen they wanted wine, unto her, Woman,* what have I to 
the mother of Jesus saith unto him, do with thee ? {ti ijuol koI Gol=lit. 



* It is remarkable that in all the Four Gospels, there is not a single 
recorded instance of Christ calling Mary " Mother," after He began His 
public ministry. Here at the beginning He calls her "woman;" and so 
at the end, speaking from the cross, it is still "woman;" while to John, 
standing by, He says, " Behold thy [not My] mother," John xix : 25-27. 
Indeed, except in these two places, John, neither in his Gospel nor in his 
Epistles, makes the slightest allusion to her, although after the crucifixion, 
we are told, " he took her unto his own home." On every occasion, when 
reference is made to it, Christ disparages the relationship ; declaring, in 
plain terms, that to be His disciple is a higher distinction than to be 
His mother, Matth. xii : 47-50; Mark iii : 31-35 ; Luke viii : 19-21 ; Luke 
xi : 27. And truly, it is not difficult to see, how even the grace of that 
maternity, great as it was, should be surpassed by the greater grace of 
having Him " formed in us ;" and having " His Spirit sent into our hearts, 
crying, Abba, Father," Gal. iv : 6, 19. Mary was a passive instrument in 
the hands of Him with whom nothing is impossible, in the reception of a 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 187 

Her cousin's lofty greeting when they met; 
Conscious the mother of her Lord had come, 
By leaping of the babe within her womb. 
The inspiration straightway following that, 
And rapture of her own Magnificat : 
The celebration of His natal night 
By choiring angels, singing with their might 
Glory to God, peace and good-will to men : 
The Nunc Dimittis of good Simeon : 

"What to me and thee." The which the meaning must be gatn- 
phrase is elhptical and idiomatic, of ered from its use. The same idiom 



Christ not yet manifested, and that too only in a corporeal sense : whereas, 
in the case of the believer, there is an active, intelligent and loving recep- 
tion of a Christ fully revealed, in all the glory of His Godhead. If the 
latter is of grace so was the former. She was "highly favored." It was 
favor and not merit that made her mother. She was "blessed among 
women. " Amojtg women would imply that she was made happy up to the 
level of the happiest of her sex. If this language justifies religious 
worship in her case, it would justify a higher worship to be paid to Jael, 
who smote Sisera ; for there the phrasing is still stronger : " Blessed above 
women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be," Judges v : 24. Mrs. 
Browning, in her Cradle Hymn, finely conceives her, as foreseeing and 
deprecating, with shuddering abhorrence, the blasphemous titles addressed 
to her : 

" Say of me as the Heavenly said, ' Thou art 
The blessedest of women ! ' — blessedest. 
Not holiest, not noblest — no high name 
Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a shame 
When I sit meek in heaven. For me, for me, 
God knows that I am feeble like the rest." 

The mention of Mary in the New Testament is confined to a few texts. 
Matthew, after the first two chapters which contain the narrative of the 



l88 THE EVANGEL. 

The coming of the Magi from afar, 
Under the guidance of His proper star: — 
All these, so kept and pondered in her heart, 
Formed of her being an essential part. 

But she was human. There the New-born lay 
In all His helplessness ; and day by day 
She fed Him from the fountains of her breast ; 
And fondled Him, and folded Him to rest ; 
And watched His slumbers, kissed Him o'er and o'er^ 
Giving her all and wishing it were more. 



occurs in Matth. viii : 29, rl rj/nlv thee," or "What hast thou to do 
/ca^' <TOi=" What have we to do with with us." Also, 2 Sam. xvi : 10, 



birth of Jesus and the events following, refers to her but once ; Mark, 
twice in all ; Luke, passing by the Nativity, twice in his Gospel, and once 
in the Acts. Of John we have already spoken. The information given, it 
must be confessed, is meagre enough, but it is all we have concerning her. 
There is not an authentic syllable beyond to be found anywhere. It seems 
strange that it is so : that the references to her are all so slight, so casual, 
so tame withal, not to say depreciatory. We are driven to think there 
must be a reason for it. Surely it was no mean honor to be the mother 
of such a Son ; and the sentiment of the woman who said to Him, 
" Blessed is the womb that bare Thee," we cannot help feeling is a very 
natural and proper one. But then we know that Christ declared again 
and again, that a greater blessedness than that of bearing Him was that 
of believing on Him • and that there belonged to His mother no superior 
sanctity nor blessedness whatever. It is probable to the effect of this 
teaching that we are to attribute the little notice taken of her in the Gos- 
pels, and the utter silence observed in regard to her everywhere else in the 
New Testament. Christ foresaw the stupendous apostasy, and this 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 1 89 

If love did cast out fear and even awe, 
'T were but the working of a natural law. 
The mother to the Child familiar grown 
Might half forget He was not all her own. 

So later, never seeing Him neglect 
Filial obedience and due respect ; 
Meekly submiss to the parental hand 
In every innocent and just command ; 
Perpetual presence of the human side, 
Whose godly perfectness would Godhead hide 



andxix : 22, re e/xo2 koI vjilv (lxx.) This rendering suits all places, as 
= "What have I to do with you." in every case where it occurs there 



explains all. Interpreted by the light of subsequent events, His language 
is the language of warning. Its import could not be plainer, if he had 
said in so many words, " Mary is a woman like other women ; a sinner 
like other sinners, to be saved, not because she bore Me, but because she 
believes in Me ; and has no pre-eminence in heaven or earth over other 
believers. You may not worship her. ' I am the Lord : that is My name : 
and My glory I will not give to another, neither My praise to graven 
images.' " (Isa. xlii : 8.) 

How is the portentous fact of the past and present prevalence of Mary- 
worship to be accounted for? W^here shall we look for the origin of the 
cultus f Certainly not to the Bible ; nor to the Creeds ; nor to the Fathers 
of the first five centuries. They know nothing of it : or know of it only 
to denounce it. Has there been since then a new revelation ? To the 
canonical four, has there been a fifth Gospel added ? And is there now 
(the four being virtually one) a Gospel of Jesus Christ, and "another 
Gospel," the Gospel of Mary? And is this last of superior authority to 
the former, overriding and abolishing it in all points where they differ ? 



IQO THE EVANGEL. 

Only the more ; this in abeyance kept, 

The man seen acting while the Godhead slept ; 

In lowly offices each day employed ; 

Human infirmity could scarce avoid 

Occasion for rebuke, as overbold, 

As once before when He was twelve years old. 

For though in favored hours 't was joy sublime 

The heights of His divinity to climb; 

She felt it sweet, with sweet looks to regale 

The mother's heart, and nestle in the vale 



is evidently intended some form of eating remonstrance, as in the case 
antagonism ; sometimes of depre- of the demons, but usually of re- 



The Roman Catholic Church is theoretically and practically committed to 
an affirmative answer. It is the logic of her situation. But she does not, 
v^e believe, pretend that there is any historic proof that such a revelation 
has ever been made. She may say, that a formal and direct revelation 
was not necessary ; but there would be still, lying behind, this difficulty — 
How can there be two revelations, of which one contradicts the other ? 
Both cannot be true. Either one is false, or both are so. It were easy to 
show that the Marian Gospel does more than supplement Christ's Gos- 
pel — it supplants it. 

Mr. Newman believes in development, but it were Darwin outdone, to 
develop from nothing, with no germ to start with. Having the germ, we 
need to know its nature. If it is a lie, no power in the universe can develop 
it into a truth. A little lie can be developed into a big one, that is all. In 
point of growth, truth would seem to have little or no advantage over 
falsehood. In the present state it is difficult to say which propagates the 
fastest; or which is most tenacious of life. Error we know is long-lived. 
Mariolatry is old, and so is Mohammedanism. They are perhaps nearly 
the same age ; and their lives having run parallel for one thousand years 
or more, it may be they will do so for a thousand years to come, only we 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. I9I 

Of human sympathies and lowly needs ; 
For so the human in the human pleads. 

Had she ambitions ? Seemed it long to wait, 
Her Son still humble, born to be so great ? 
Knew she what passed at Jordan ? Had she heard 
How Heaven His Heavenly Sonship had averred ? 
And when she saw Him, with His little five 
Disciples, at the wedding-feast arrive ; 
Would she precipitate on Him the hour 



pulse and reproof, with something mine hour is not yet come. 

of rejection and refusal implied] [Matth. xii : 46. While he yet 

hope not. One is about as catholic as the other, territorially. If it be 
objected that the term catholic does not apply in a geographical sense, the 
answer is, neither does it in any higher sense, and this would compel its 
rejection altogether. 

As there is no way in which the facts and phenomena of the world 
around us can be so effectually made intelligible to us, as by tracing them 
up to their source, the historic genesis of the worship of the Virgin is, 
undoubtedly, a proper subject of inquiry. Much is plain. The opinion 
that its origin is to be found in the apocryphal legends of her birth and 
death, of which some are as early as the second or third century, is un- 
questionably correct. There are the germs. We have lying before us 
the Apocryphal Gospels in which these legends are preserved. That 
must be a hopeless perversity which refuses to discriminate between these 
childish fictions and the inspired narratives. Their authorship is referred 
to the Gnostics, who, by pagan infusions of false philosophy, and the 
introduction of " profane and old wives' fables," were among the earliest 
corrupters of Christianity. Although the stories did not exist, in the form 
we receive them, in Paul's time, there is reason to believe, that " the mys- 
tery of iniquity " had begun then already to work ; and that they are of 
the same juggling character, if not actually a part, of those " profane and 



192 THE EVANGEL. 

To manifest the hidings of His power? 
With this impatient zeal, were there beside, 
No secret minglings of maternal pride? 

" Since those of old wrought miracles divine, 
Why should not God's beloved Son and mine ?" 

Christ needed not that any should impart 
These secret workings of His mother's heart ; 
And when she said, half hinting her intent. 



talked to the people, behold, his out, desiring to speak with him. 
mother and his brethren stood with- 4" Then one said unto him. Behold, 



vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so called " [avTt&eaeig' 
■>pEV(^o)vvjUov yvwcrfwr =" antitheses of Gnosticism," as, with a certain 
literal freedom, it perhaps might be rendered] which the Apostle so sol- 
emnly exhorts Timothy to avoid. 

The Apocryphal Gospels which relate more particularly to Mary, are 
chiefly three: "The Gospel of the Birth of Mary;" "The Protevan- 
gelion," so called; and the Gospel of "The Infancy of Jesus Christ.'. 
The first is a later production than the second ; and although a much 
earlier date is claimed for it, it probably belongs to the sixth century. It 
goes over the same ground ; and is mostly contained in The Protevange- 
lion, a part of which at least was in existence as early as the third century. 
It was highly esteemed by the Greek Church, and many of the early tra- 
ditions respecting Mary are found in it. While it is childish and extrava- 
gant in the highest degree, and bears all the marks of fable, it is less 
wildly fantastical, monstrous, and absurd, than the tale which follows, and 
which has been the subject of previous reference. It is ascribed to the 
Gnostics of the second century ; but there is reason to believe, that it owes 
its present shape to recensions and additions made as late as the fifth or 
sixth. Now, for the first time, Mary is called "St. Mary," and "Our 
Lady," and appears in the character of a miracle-worker. The story 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 1 95 

'' They have no wine," He knew well what she meant ; 
And spake with Majesty, designing check, 
For thinking Godhead subject to her beck. 

" Nay, woman ! what have I to do with thee. 
In the high sphere of My Divinity? 
Thy human kinship giveth thee no right 
Over thy Maker or thy Maker's might : 
I know full well thy meaning and design ; 
But which is best, My Father's will or thine ? 



thy mother and thy brethren stand -^^ But he answered and said unto 
without, desiring to speak with thee. him that told him. Who is my mo- 



abounds in disgusting details, unfit for recital ; and yet it is certain that 
the worship of the Virgin can boast of no higher, better or more honorable 
origin, than this most vulgar compound of feculent folly and falsehood, 
and others like it. 

For the first five centuries, these Gnostic inventions were unanimously 
rejected by the entire Church as fabulous and heretical. The sect of the 
CoUyridians, who (anticipating perhaps some future Pope, and a stage of 
development not yet reached, held that Mary herself was born of a virgin), 
were accustomed to offer manchet bread and cracknels, or fine wafers, 
to her in the way of worship, were denounced by Epiphanius, speaking 
the sentiment of the Church in the fifth century. "The whole thing," 
he says, " is foolish and strange, and is a device and deceit of the Devil. 
Let Mary be honored. Let the Lord be worshiped. Let no one worship 
Mary." It was not till after the Nestorian controversy that there was any 
change. As Nestorius was understood to teach that Christ was two per- 
sons, and that the Child born of Mary was not divine, but became divine 
after birth by union with Divinity, it is natural that this should provoke 
strong assertions of Christ's oneness and original divinity, with the use of 
new terms. The Council of Ephesus (431) condemned the doctrine of 

13 



»^ 



194 THE EVANGEL. 

Think'st thou for this I came to dwell below, 
To use God's awful attributes for show? 
Infinite power needs wisdom to direct, 
Equally infinite, br order's wrecked : 
Human omnipotence would be a curse, 
A trembling terror to the Universe. 
Were Nature's laws the sport of man's caprice 
Or man's affections, where would chaos cease ? 
Since man is ignorant, therefore is he weak ; 
Weakness is safety 'gainst mistake or freak. 



ther? and who are my brethren? toward his disciples, and said, Be- 
49 And he stretched forth his hand hold my mother and my brethren ! 

Nestorius, and sanctioned the title Gcoro/cor, loosely rendered "Mother 
of God," but without intending thereby, although such was the effect, to 
magnify the mother, but only to vindicate the true doctrine with respect 
to the Son. After a time the old fables were winked at, and thus "be- 
came," as Lord Lindsay remarks, " the mythology of Christianity, univer- 
sally credited among the Southern nations of Europe, while many of the 
dogmas which they are grounded upon, have, as a natural consequence, 
crept into the faith." Like the grain of mustard seed, which, though the 
least of all seeds, when grown is the greatest of herbs, the worship of 
Mary, after it had once taken root, grew apace, until it became a mighty 
tree, whose baleful shadow covered half the world. Transfigured by 
the imagination, and made the representative of an ideal womanhood, 
there was attributed to her all possible perfection ; and the apotheosis 
once complete, the next step was to fall down before their own work. 
Undoubtedly the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth had a similar origin. 
Men worshiping under these names, the beneficent powers of Nature — the 
Sun and the Moon, their ideals of perfection, the brightest and best they 
knew; but it was not less an abomination in God's sight. 
Every body knows, to be a Roman Catholic, it is not enough to believa 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. I95 

Thou should'st be wiser than Omniscience, who 
Outrunnest God to tell Me what to do. 

My time is not yet come, My time I wait ; 
The stars their time do not anticipate, 
No, not one moment ; moment or a year, 
'Tis all the same, if 'tis not now and here. 
The times and seasons, and th' appointed hour, 
The Father solely puts in His own power." 

He spake, as knowing, in the after time, 

«o For whosoever shall do the will the same is my brother, and sister, 
of my Father which is in heaven, and mother. Mark iii : 21. And 

in Christ ; but one must believe, above all things, in Mary, and the 
Gospel of Mary. Now. the Marian Gospel is, as we have said, clearly 
" another Gospel." and not Christ's. It is different as the Koran is differ- 
ent. It is Pagan and not Christian ; it is filled with human gods. Apoth- 
eosized saints occupy the entire foreground, and crowd all the avenues of 
approach. All is changed. God is not the same God ; Christ is not the 
same Christ ; nor is Mary the same Mary ; nor are the Apostles the same. 
Every thing is bedeviled. Nothing is as it was. All is turned topsy-turvy, 
with God at the bottom, and man at the top. Heaven has grown strangely 
heathenish. We look, and instead of " the Lord high and lifted up," we 
behold a strange woman seated, bearing titles, Reg-ma Cceli and Mater 
Dei, directly borrowed from 

"Mooned Ashtaroth, 
Heaven's Queen, and Mother both," 

the Greek Astarte ; " girt with tapers' holy shine," and decked with the 
crescent moon. They call her Mary, but we know it is not Mary. Divine 
attributes and offices are freely ascribed to her. We hear sometimes the 
old names of God and Christ, but they are faintly uttered, and with de- 



196 THE EVANGEL. 

From her fond error would arise the crime, 
The shame of all the ages — spake with ruth, 
Yet with the stern severity of truth. 
She did not see, but His prophetic eye 
Corruption of true worship could descry : 
In lieu of worship paid. Great God, to Thee, 
A voluntary false humility, 
And worshiping of angels ; and of her. 
On whom the Son refuses to confer 
The name of mother, even to the last, 



when his friends heard of it, they they said, He is beside himself. . . 
went out to lay hold on him : for ^i There came then his brethren and 

cayed interest. Tired of the cares of government, God, they would have us 
believe, has vacated sovereignty in the kingdom of grace ; and the immen- 
sity of the void thus createal, He has left to be filled with a human speck, 
an atom of a ruler, and become Himself a subject. Having surrendered 
the infinite matters of human salvation into the hands of the so-called 
Mary, it follows, we are told, that henceforth "It is impossible for any to 
be saved who turns away from her, or is disregarded by her;" all grace 
being absolutely in her keeping. 

Lest we should be suspected of misrepresentation or exaggeration, we 
prefer to quote. The extracts given below, are from approved Catholic 
authorities : " Since the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God, and God is 
her Son, and every son is naturally inferior to his mother, and her subject, 
and the mother is set over and superior to the son, it follows that the 
Blessed Virgin herself is superior to God, and God Himself is her subject 
in regard to the humanity which He took from her." Again, "All things 
are subject to the command of the Virgin, even God Himself." Once 
more, " You have over God the authority of a mother, and hence you can 
obtain pardon for the most obdurate sinners." Still further, "Jesus having 
entered into all the feelings of His Father from the time of His blessed 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. I97 

As if an effete office of the past, 

Devoid of fitness — uttered ne'er again 

By those pure lips which spake no word in vain — 

CalHng her woman simply — disallowed 

Claims of pre-eminence and titles proud; 

Plainly declared, to put all doubt at rest. 

There was relationship than hers more blest : 

^' Who is My mother ? and My brethren who ? " 
Addressing those about Him, " Who but you ? 

his mother, and standing without, the multitude sat about him, and 
sent unto him, calling him. ^2 ^nfj tj^ey said unto him. Behold, thy 



Resurrection, finds Himself in the same disposition with the Father toward 
sinners, i. e., to reject them; so that the difficulty is to induce Him to 
exchange the office of Judge for that of Advocate ; and of a Judge to 
make Him a suppliant. Now this is what the blessed saints effect, and 
especially the most Blessed Virgin." [The assumption, that Christ has 
changed, and abandoned his mediatorial office, is, of course, in direct con- 
tradiction of such texts as, " He is able to save them to the uttermost, 
that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession 
for them," Heb. vii : 25. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day and 
forever," Heb. xiii : 8. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from 
above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no 
variableness, neither shadow of turning," James i : 17. " For I am the 
Tord, I change not," Mai. iii : 6.] The present Pope writes: "For 
ye know very well. Venerable Brethren, that the whole of our confidence 
is placed in the most Holy Virgin, since God has placed in Mary the 
fulness of all good, that accordingly we may know, that if there is any 
hope in us, if any grace, if any salvation, it redounds to us from her, 
because such is His will, who hath willed that we should have everything 
through Mary." Elsewhere we have the statement, " God does not will 
anything except through the Blessed Virgin." "He has placed her 



198 THE EVANGEL. 

More blessed than the womb that bare Me, they 
Who hear God's word, and hearing it obey." 

And yet, and yet — it seems a dreadful dream — . 
Men in her name continually blaspheme. 
And shock the heavens. She, " mooned Ashtaroth," 
Mother of God and Queen of Heaven is both ; 
Above the heavens exalted — from her place 
Dispensing all salvation and all grace ; 
Higher than God. 

" Since nought can stay thy hand^ 



mother and thy brethren without them, saying. Who is my mother, 
seek for thee. ^'■^ And he answered or my brethren ? '^And he looked 



between Christ and the Church, so that as no man can come to God but 
by Christ, so nobody can come to Christ but by Mary." 

We are further taught, that Mary gave her Son to die for us; that He 
obeyed her will in dying for us ; that she helped Him to undergo death ; 
that what He obtained for us " of condignity," she obtained " of congru- 
ity ; " that souls are born of God and Mary ; that she feeds all with her 
own flesh, etc. We again quote: " As God so loved the world that He 
gave His only begotten Son, so Mary so loved the world that she gave 
her only begotten Son. The Virgin not only, concordant with the Father, 
gave her Son to the world, but also in conformity with her Son, with 
priestly piety offered Him up as a sacrifice for the world. ... It is equi- 
table that as the Son, voluntarily enduring death, satisfied for all, so the 
Virgin, voluntarily offering her Son to that same death, obtained the sal- 
vation of all. . . . So, then. He who addressed His Father, ' Not My 
will but Thine be done,' and, owning to the will of His Father, -willingly 
offered Himself to death, did also gain great courage to endure death, i» 



T?IE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 1 99 

Mother of God ! " they cry, '' thy Son command ! 
By that authority thou hast, require 
FiHal comphance, granting our desire ! 
So will we build to thee, and every day 
Will costlier offerings on thy altars lay." 

Bribed intercessor at the Upper Court, 
They count continually on her support ; 
Reliance place on nature's pleadings even. 
To warp the purpose of judicial Heaven. 



round about on them which sat mother, and my brethren! ^spoj. 
about him, and said. Behold my whosoever shall do the will of God, 

that He knew that His Mother willed the same ; yea, we may say, that by 
dying he obeyed not only His Father but also His Mother. . . . That salva- 
tion of the whole human race which her Son merited ' de cotidigno,' she, 
' de cong)-vo,' in a certain excellent way, obtained and promoted." . . . 
"We maintain a (co)-presence of Mary in the Eucharist." . . . "The 
Blood of the Lord, and the lac of His Virgin Mother — ' the lac virginale ' — 
are both present in the sacrament. ... As often as we eat the Flesh of 
Christ in the Eucharist, so often do we in it really eat the Flesh of the 
Blessed Virgin. For the Flesh of Christ is the Flesh of the Blessed Virgin." 
" Christ, we are told, vouchsafed at mass, to show to S. Ignatius [Loyola] 
the very fart of the Host which had once belonged to the substance of Mary." 
"When the Holy Ghost, her Spouse, has found Mary in a soul. He flies 
there. . . . One great reason why the Holy Ghost does not now do start- 
ling wonders in our souls is, because He does not find there a sufficiently 
great union with His faithful and indissoluble Spouse." 

" The Psalter of the Blessed Bonaventura," recognized during three cen- 
turies, sanctioned by the present Pope, and approved by the appointed 
censors, is a formulary of devotion, whose popularity is evinced by the 
numerous editions through which it has passed. Bonaventura himself 



200 THE EVANGEL. 

The Judge of all the earth could not do less, 
For vindication of His righteousness, 
Than openly, and once for all, disown 
All earthly bias carried to His throne. 

Blot out, O Lord, this impudent pretense ! 
Shocking to piety and common sense ; 
This pagan substitute, with scarce a trace 
Of likeness to that Gospel of God's grace, 
Which Paul once preached, and said, let none pre- 
sume 



the same is my brother, and sister, came to him his mother and his 
and mother. Luke viii : 19. Then brethren, and could not come at 

is a distinguished saint in the Romish Calendar; and for whatever 
of blasphemy there is in the licentious travesty that follows, the Roman 
Cathohc Church ought certainly to be held accountable. It begins, 
" Come unto Mary, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and she will 
give you rest." Throughout the Psalms, wherever the name of God 
occurs, the name of Mary is substituted. The nineteenth Psalm is made 
to read thus: "The heavens declare the glory of the Virgin, and the 
firmament showeth forth her handiwork." So the ninety-fifth Psalm: 
" O let us sing unto our Lady ; let us rejoice in the Virgin, that brings us 
salvation ; let us come before her presence with singing, let us praise her 
together ; come, let us adore and fall down before her ; let us confess our 
sins to her with mourning, that she may obtain for us a full indulgence." 
The one hundred and tenth Psalm in like manner is changed to, "The 
Lord said unto Mary, Stand thou at My right hand until I have made 
thine enemies thy footstool ; " and so throughout. At the close of the 
Psalms, the Te Deum and other pieces of ancient devotion are subjected 
to the same adaptation. The first runs thus : " We praise thee, O Mary ; 
we acknowledge thee to be a virgin. All the earth doth worship thee, the 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 201 

To preach " another Gospel" in its room, 
On pain of the anathema : the curse 
Could not have fallen on a Gospel worse ; 
With human saviours, saintly go-betweens, 
To tease the Judge until He intervenes. 

A court, that were the scandal of the earth, 
A theme for ribaldry, contempt, and mirth — 
Where human motive of maternal awe 
O'ersways the strict integrity of law 



him for the press. 20 And it was told mother and thy brethren stand with- 
him by certain which said. Thy out, desiring to see thee. -'And he 

Spouse of the Eternal. To thee, angels and archangels, to thee thrones 
and principalities, to thee choirs and cherubim and seraphim continually 
cry, Holy, holy, holy, art thou, O Mary, Mother of God ; " and so on to 
the end. After this follows, " The Litany of the Blessed Virgin," which 
is treated in the same way. Here is a specimen : "In all times of our 
tribulation, in all times of our w^ealth, in the hour of death, and in the day 
of judgment, from the torments of the damned, deliver us, O Virgin 
Mary ! " 

Here are some of the titles applied to her: " Co-Redemptress of the 
World," " Authoress of Eternal Salvation," " Propitiatory of the whole 
World," "Queen of Heaven and Hell," "The Great Peace-maker," 
" The Way of Salvation,'' "Omnipotence," " Ominipotence Kneeling," 
"The Advocate," " The Saviour." 

We are aware that the terms " douleia " ("servitude"), and " hyper- 
douleia " (" higher servitude "), and " latreia " ("free service for hire; " 
also, " divine worship "), have been used to distinguish between different 
kinds of worship, according as it is paid to the saints, to the Virgin, or to 
God. If it be true, that " Ora pro nobis" " Pray for us," belongs to the 
*' douleia," and " Miserere nobis," " Have mercy on us," to the " latreia," 



202 THE EVANGEL. 

To partial verdicts ; and where grace is sold, 
For flatteries and equivalents of gold : 
Where one is warned, if he would win his case^ 
Not to come boldly to the Throne of Grace, 
But hither come where doubtful pleas are drest,. 
And by attorneys of the saints are pressed. 

For, since the resurrection, they pretend, 
Jesus is less and less the sinner's friend ; 
More prone to wrath than pity, whence 'tis hard 
To gain from Him attention or regard : 



answered and said unto them. My which hear the word of God and do 
mother and my brethren are these it. xi : 27. And it came to pass, as 



then it is certain, that the cultus of the Virgin is not a " douleia," nor a 
"hyperdouleia," but a true "latreia," or divine worship; for this, or 
language of hl<:e import, is constantly addressed to her. But these nice 
distinctions are practically null. Prayer, addressed to any absent being, 
presupposes the possession of the divine attributes of omniscience and 
omnipresence ; otherwise, how can be heard the petitions of ten thousand 
suppliants, offered at the same moment all over- the world. If this cannot 
be gainsaid, then is the "douleia" always a "latreia," and necessarily 
idolatrous. The nature of the human mind is such that it cannot give 
effectual attention to more than one speaker at once, for more than one 
causes distraction. Unless, therefore, canonization be a true deification^ 
or God-making, and instead of one God we now have many, it is manifest 
that praying to saints, to say the least, is vain ; and no better than fetish. 
A block of wood is not deafer than the absent ; nor less able to help. 

It is well understood that the worship of Mary has received a new im- 
pulse and a great expansion since the accession of the present Pope. He 
succeeded, in spite of all opposition, in making the doctrine of the 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 203 

An Advocate no longer, but a Judge, 

Who gives reluctantly, even to begrudge 

The grace He purchased — wrested now and wrung 

Only by wheedlings of a mother's tongue, 

A boon to silence askings ; not because 

Of love eternal, and eternal laws 

Of grace, whose sovereign, fixed, and only seat 

Is God's great bosom, higher than whose feet 

No wing has soared : Yea, that supremest fact 

he spake these things, a certain voice, and said unto him. Blessed 
woman of the company lifted up her is the womb that bare thee, and the 

Immaculate Conception, which had previously been a matter of free 
belief, into an obligatory article of faith — something to be believed " de 
fide," under pain of damnation. Results great and speedy were expected 
to follow the definition of the doctrine. The delegate apostolic of Greece 
predicted, " The great one herself will requite you, and by her most 
powerful patronage will disperse those horrible tempests, wherewith in 
these most sad times your Blessedness, with the whole Church, is tossed. 
Winds and storms will cease, and there will be a great calm." The Irish 
Bishops expected, "The Mother of Mercy will arise, when she shall 
understand that her glory is at our hearts, and stretching forth the right 
hand of her might, amid the most dire storms and tempests wherewith we 
are tossed, she will lead us to a port of safety ; she will arise and utterly 
destroy all heresies." 

It is very evident that these do the Virgin the justice to suppose, that 
for the accomplished honor, so long delayed, she will be duly grateful, 
and hasten to make recompense ; taking it for granted, that adulation is 
still sweet to her, and the feminine privilege of flattery as dear to her as 
ever. This is the construction that the Archbishop of Paris put upon it, who 
doubtful of the propriety of the action contemplated, significantly asks, 
" When they exhibit to us the Blessed Virgin rejoicing in such honor, and 
therefore exulting, that we acknowledge her singular privilege, and as a 



204 THE EVANGEL. 

Of all His government, each pardoning act, 
His sole prerogative, they lying say 
Is in this petty, peddling, meddling way. 
Bestowed by Mary's mediating hands ; 
Who, human, nothing knows nor understands ; 
Her puny shoulders bearing up a load 
Crushing to the Almightiness of God ; 
Spilling the fullness of the grace of Heaven, 
On inside favorites ; while none is given 



paps which thou hast Slicked. ^sBut they which hear the word of God, 
he said. Yea, rather, blessed are and keep it.] 

reward, taking care to pour most copious treasures of her gifts into the 
Church, do they not clothe the Queen of the heavenly court with the fail- 
ings of our infirmities? Do they not represent her as a woman, desirous 
of vain glory, to whose feet each makes his way by flattery and blandish- 
ments ? These things, if not vain phrenzies, are invented to reproach the 
Virgin." If the events which have taken place since the declaration of 
the dogma, are to be regarded as affording evidence of her disposition 
toward it, there can be no doubt but what she is displeased at it rather 
than pleased; for, since then, there has been " Bubble, bubble, toil and 
trouble," a thousand times more than ever, both to the Pope and the 
Church. The Archbishop of Rouen held that erecting into a dogma " a 
belief which does not reach in anyway at all explicit or imposing the elev- 
enth century, and which so many holy persons and doctors have either 
denied or been ignorant of," is a virtual abandonment of that principle ot 
S. Vincent of Lerins, so certain and venerable, Quod tibiqtie, quod semper, 
quod ab otnnibus tradltum est, etc. — " What was always, everywhere, by 
all, received as a dogma of faith, and believed until now." 

In decreeing this dogma, the Pope asserted his right to make doctrinal 
decisions without consulting the Church, a right which always before had 
been disputed. This prepared the way for the action of the Council sub- 
sequently held, which formally declared that the Pope is alone infaUible — 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 20$ 

To outside worshipers, who do not know 
She has monopoly of grace below. 

However sottish as a general rule, 
Man, surely, cannot be so great a fool 
As to be cheated in the open day. 
In such a barefaced, gross and shameless wayj 
Accept as Gospel, without proof the least. 
The crafty work and gainful of the priest : 

John ii : 5. His mother saith unto unto you, do it. ^And there were 
the servants, Whatsoever he saith set there six water-pots of stone, 



thus placing the beliefs of the entire Catholic world at the mercy of the 
ipse dixit of a single man. If this is not the apotheosis of whim, what is 
it ? The Pope can now do what God cannot do — make the false true ; 
declare that to be fact which is not fact. Let him introduce whatever 
novelty he pleases, every good Catholic, renouncing his own judgment, 
is bound to accept it as " of faith," under pain of mortal sin. One may 
know what he believes to-day, but cannot tell what he will believe to- 
morrow, A crotchet too hard for faith damns him. 

F. Faber, who was one of those who passed over from the Anglican 
Communion to the Roman, expressed himself as looking and longing for 
" the speedy coming of that great age of the Church, which is to be the 
Age of Mary," with which, he prayed, that " the Holy Spirit, the Divine 
Zealot of Jesus and Mary, may be pleased quickly to console us." Refer- 
ring to the short-comings of English Roman Catholics, he asks, "What 
is the remedy that is wanted? What is the remedy indicated by God 
himself? If we may rely on the disclosures of the saints, it is an immense 
increase of our devotion to our Blessed Lady; but remember, nothing 
short of an imvtense one. . . . Thousands of souls perish, because Mary 
is withheld from them." With a pantocratic, all-powerful and infallible 
Pope, most favorably disposed, there would really seem to be no good 
reason why the wished-for consummation should be longer delayed. If 



206 THE EVANGEL. 

Be made the dupe of an invented lie 

Of bulk to blot and blacken all the sky ; 

Celestial glories darken and efface, 

And quench the firmament of light and grace. 

With all the doors of Heaven wide open flung, 
And welcomes sounding out from every tongue ; 
Jesus, with arms of love extended wide, 

after the manner of the purifying firkins apiece. 7jesus saith unto 
of the Jews, containing two or three them, Fill the water-pots with water. 

any new dogma is needed, he has only to decree it. Let the Age of Christ 
give place to the Age of Mary ! Instead of Christianity, let Marianity 
henceforth be the religion of the world ! 

All this takes place according to the law of development — not the devel- 
opment, assuredly, of what is Christian in that communion, but of what 
is Romish and Pagan. What is Christian therein we honor. We are not 
unmindful of the fact, that some of its members have borne a noble and 
pure testimony. We are grateful for such men as Thomas d Kempis ; 
who, in his "Imitation of Christ," knows nothing but Christ and Him 
crucified, making no mention of Mary. We reckon such true Catholics, 
not Roman Catholics. 

The epithet Roman is the defining word ; and ought never to be omitted 
when speaking of the Roman Catholic Church ; it tells the whole story of 
its origin; and explains its mixed character, as half pagan, half Christian. 
Pagan Rome survives in Papal Rome. Its spirit is there, as arrogant and 
usurping as ever, still claiming universal dominion. Pope is Caesar, even 
to the title he bears. One of the titles of Caesar Augustus was Po7itifex 
Maximus, or Supreme Pontiff. Pontifex means Bridge-inaker. A long 
time before the Christian Era, when Rome was yet a small town, the con- 
struction and care of the fortified bridges across the Tiber to Janiculus 
were committed to an order of men called Pontifices or bridge-makers, of 
which the chief was called Summus Pontifex. Their persons were sacred 
from all assaalt, and the name came to be one of high honor. Borne by 
the emperors, it passed to the Popes, who henceforth became the Bridge- 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 20/ 

Galling the race of sinners to His side ; 

It seems impossible that any can, 

By preference, turn to this most vulgar plan 

Of prayers to saints, in manner roundabout, 

And prayers to Mary : tossed from doubt to doubt, 

With justest reason to be most afraid, 

That, if they hear, they cannot render aid ; 

And they filled them up to the brim. now, and bear unto the governor of 
eAnd he saith unto them, Draw out the feast. And they bear it. ^When 

makers. In all those arts which made Heathen Rome so long mistress of 
the world, her Christian successor has shown herself more than her equal. 
Never was there so perfect a tyranny as that she set up. 

But the identity stops not at the government. There was an imbibing 
of the social and religious life as well as the political. Many of the old 
Roman superstitions found their way into the Christian Church under new 
names. Basilicas became churches. Symbols and ceremonies were bor- 
rowed from the heathen mysteries. Frequent apotheoses had swelled the 
number of gods to thirty thousand. Canonizations took the place of 
deifications. To the Lares and Lemures succeeded Tutelary Saints. The 
unlaid ghosts of that distant age continue to visit "the glimpses of the 
moon," nor do they vanish at the cock-crowing. Now, as aforetime, 

" In the most high and palmy state of Rome, 

The graves ' stand ' tenantless, and the sheeted dead 
' Do ' squeak and gibber in the Roman streets." 

The opinion has been expressed, that could we call Scipio from his tomb 
at Rome to-day, he would recognize almost every thing in the extant reli- 
gious worship. 

What a pity it is, since there was to be development, that it did not put 
on another form and develop the Christian element in the Church of 
Rome, being that wherein all true CathoHcity consists, and the sole bond 
of unity and concord— instead of that alien and repellent Heathenism, 
which must serve only to drive farther off and make the gulf of separation 
still wider between itself and a Scriptural Protestantism ! 



208 THE EVANGEL. 

But sit in grief and agony of shame, 

At the blasphemings uttered in their name. 

Mary was only faUible and frail — 
To err is human ; easy 'tis to fail — 
Meekly she bore deserved divine rebuff, 
Then swift forgiveness said it was enough. 
Who wrath o'errules to praise, occasion makes 

the ruler of the feast had tasted the not whence it was, (but the servants 
water that was made wine,* and knew which drew the water knew,) the 

* The evils of Intemperance are immense, and abstinence would seem 
to be the only remedy. Mahomet forbade wine and Christ made it. The 
difference between Christ and Mahomet was that of divine knowledge 
and human ignorance. Mahomet mistook a part for the whole, and with 
his axe of prohibition struck at a branch supposing it to be the trunk. 
The Omniscient Christ was guilty of no such error ; He knew that the bane 
was manifold, and that to single out wine for special prohibition was folly. 

The truth is, Christ forbade nothing. Not but that ten thousand things 
are forbidden — every thing hurtful is so. Nature forbids and nature is 
final. Why re-enact nature ? reaffirm creation ? deal in dittoes and deu- 
teronomies ? repeat laws established ? settle what was never unsettled ? 
Christ left nature as He found it, inviolate, unrepealed. His walking on 
the water did not abolish gravitation. Fact was fact the same as before — 
arsenic was arsenic ; alcohol was alcohol. So far as nature forbade these 
they were forbidden ; so far as nature permitted them they were permitted. 
Christ could go no farther than nature and be the Lord of nature. Con- 
sequently, Christ could not have forbidden wine absolutely and been God. 

Wine is many and different. There is a kind of wine which is not ; and 
another which is into.xicating, that is, has a toxic or poisoning power, for 
that is the meaning of the term. Was the wine Christ made, the latter? 
Christ's character is the answer. If that says, No, it is no ; for the wine 
is to be judged by Christ, not Christ by the wine. Christ we know, the 
wine we do not know. That which best befitted Him to make, He un- 
doubtedly made. Which is most likely to have been the subject of a di- 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 209 

To manifest His glory by mistakes : 

And so the mother's forwardness, well meant, 

Was made to chime with heavenly intent 

And time so nearly, that the self-same hour, 

Came revelation of Christ's hidden power^ 

Beginning of His miracles of might 

And love and wisdom wrought in open sight. 

Who feeds the ravens when their food is scant, 

Is not indifferent to any want : 



governor of the feast called the Every man at the beginning dotb 
bridegroom, "And saith unto him, set forth good wine; and when men 

vine creation — a natural innocent product, or an artificial pernicious one ? 
The last would constitute a miracle unlike any other ; but the making of 
grape-juice is as the making of grapes. There is identity of operation. 
It is in the direct known line of Divine Causation. This authenticates it. 
If it be true that "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He 
seeth the Father do, for whatsoever things He doeth, these also doeth the 
Son " (John v : 19), then is the nature of the wine conclusively establish- 
ed ; for it is certain that the Son had never seen the Father make intoxi- 
cating wine. To make intoxicating wme, would be to do what He had 
seen men do, not what He had seen His Father do ; it would be to imi- 
tate man's evil product, the most fatal of those many inventions he has 
sought out— a departure from the divine manner, prodigious and inex- 
plicable. Taking our stand, therefore, on the immovable rock of Christ's 
character we risk nothing in saying, that the wine of miracle answered to 
the wme of nature, and was not intoxicating. No counter proof can 
equal the force of that drawn from His attributes. It is an indecency 
and a calumny to impute to Christ conduct which requires apology : and, 
assuredly, if Christ furnished the means of a stupendous revel — not less 
than one hundred and twenty gallons of inebriating liquor, better, that is, 
stronger, more mocking and seductive, than that which had made the 
company all drunk (" methusthosi "), "the real alcoholic stuff and no 



210 THE EVANGEL. 

They wanting wine, and wanting means to buy, 
Would Christ by miracle the want supply ? 
Though chiding, at the first, the bold request, 
He, afterward. His willingness expressed 
By sign or word. The means, the manner hidden, 
The mother bade the servants do as bidden. 
There standing were six water-pots of stone, 
With room for many gallons in each one ; 
And Jesus said to those attending Him : 



have well drunk, then that which is wine until now, ii This beginning 
worse: but thou hast kept thy good of miracles did Jesus in Cana of 



sham," in open water-pots, with a tacit invitation to them to drink it all up 
then and there lest it should spoil by too long standing — it would defy the 
combined wit of the whole world to justify it. It would be simply com- 
pleting the picture to imagine how in the midst of their Bacchanalian 
orgies the jolly crowd fell to hugging Him, and beslavering Him with 
maudlin kisses, and telling Him what a fine fellow He was. The words, 
"This beginnmg of miracles did Jesus in Galilee, and manifested forth 
His glory," were, in that case, the sublime of irony. 

It is customary for those who hold that the wine made was intoxicating, 
to lay special stress upon the fact that methuo means " to be intoxicated ;" 
and some go so far as to say, that those who sat at table were already in- 
toxicated at the time of the miraculous supply. Were this true, it would 
strengthen our argument immensely on the moral side, for it would be 
nothing short of blasphemy to suppose that Christ would furnish more to 
those who already had too much ; but we by no means think, because 
the word means to be intoxicated, that the company were intoxicated, 
or had even been drinking anything that was intoxicating, for we 
are willing that the poor architridinus , or ruler of the feast, should 
be allowed to utter a proverbial saying without holding him to a literal 
interpretation. Certainly, if he meant to be understood as charging the 
assembled guests with being all drunk, the five newly called disciples 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 211 

*' Fill up each one with water to the brim ! 
Draw now, and to the governor convey ! " 
And they astonished hastened to obey. 

And when the ruler tasted it, amazed 

He called the bridegroom, and the vintage praised ; 

Saying, 

''All use and wont thou dost reverse, 
Keeping the good 'till last, and not the worse. 



Galilee, and manifested forth his [Prov, xx : i. Wine is a mocker, 

glory ; and his disciples believed on strong drink is raging ; and whoso- 
him. ever is deceived thereby is not wise. 



with the rest, he acted discreetly in whispering it to the bridegroom in- 
stead of speaking it aloud, for they would probably have resented it. But 
we presume there was another reason for the aside, and that if he had 
spoken it aloud, and any one had taken offence, he would have been quite 
justified in saying to him, " Fool, I am responsible for my proverb but 
not for your lack of understanding." 

One thing is certain, Christ did not make fermented wine, not even if 
He made alcoholic wine, for there was no time for fermentation. The 
alcohol, if present, must have been there by a direct creation, in which 
case it may be safely questioned, whether in any true sense it was wine at 
all — that is grape wine — any more than those factitious compounds, by 
courtesy called wine but which are not wine, where the laboratory is the 
vineyard. There are those, who under the mistaken idea that wine to be 
genuine must be the alcoholic article, contend for the genuine, and yet 
have no difficulty in using infamous shams, which do not contain, and 
never did, a single drop of grape-juice. 

Thus far we have limited ourselves to asserting that Christ did not 
make intoxicating wine, whether He ever drank it is another question. 
Here too. His character is everything — far more than doubtful philology. 
Anything He drank must, we know, have been a safe and unhurtful bev- 
erage, wherein there was no "excess." For it were, as we have said, a 



212 THE EVANGEL. 

Whence this delicious nectar, heavenly wine? 
What suns matured it ; and where grew the vine? 
Not grapes of Eschol hold so rich a blood, 
Which cheers, but not inebriates, like food?" 

Our great Exemplar sat a genial guest, 
Eating and drinking even as the rest ; 
Unbound by vows which, proper in their place, 
Did not express the freedom of the race. 



xxiii:29. Whohath woe? who hath hath babbling? who hath wounds 
sorrow ? who hath contentions ? who without cause ? who hath redness of 



crime to attribute to Christ conduct which necessitates defence or apology. 
We are not permitted to suppose that the Saviour from sin was an exam- 
ple of sin ; that He who taught self-denial practiced self-indulgence. 
Rather must we believe, that every meal He ate was a lesson of temper- 
ance ; that in no case did He ever go beyond the satisfaction of absolute 
needs. If wine was needed, even intoxicating wine. He was free to drink 
it, and so are we. Only let the need be established, and we know of no 
pledge of Teetotahsm so Mohammedan, so stupid, or so senseless as to 
forbid its use. It is a mistake to suppose that any one is asked to be more 
abstinent than Christ was, to go beyond Him a step. To maintain that 
Christ drank intoxicating wine habitually and as a beverage, without any 
requirement of health, for the sake merely of its exhilarating, in other words, 
its inebriating effects, were to outstrip the most malignant and unscrupu- 
lous of His enemies in the line of detraction, for they did not dare to go 
so far as to say, only to insinuate, that He was a wine-bibber, and a com- 
panion of wine-bibbers. The modern traducer assumes and asserts as a 
fact, what in the mouths of the hostile scribes and pharisees was no more 
than an innuendo. "All the time the Lord Jesus went in and out among 
them," three years and more, the favored Twelve enjoyed the privilege of 
a constant intercourse, with every opportunity of knowing the sentiments 
and manner of life of their Divine Master. To teach whatsoever He 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 21 3 

Wisdom is justified. He did not say, 
This thing you may not eat, and that you may ; 
Wine is forbidden, you shall not drink wine ! 
For that would prove Him other than divine ; 
Since, that which formed the essence of the bane, 
All juices that ferment alike contain. 
What profit then, to shut and bar one door. 
And leave wide open twice ten thousand more ? 
The secret poison, wheresoever hid. 



eyes? ^o They that tarry long at the wine. siLook not thou upon the 
wine ; they that go to seek mixed wine when it is red, when it o-iveth 



had commanded them, to repeat with fidelity and exactness the old lessons 
they had learned at His feet, bounded the apostolic function. And lest 
infirmity of understanding or memory should be a cause of error, the 
Infallible Spirit was sent to teach them all things, and bring to their 
remembrance whatsoever Christ had said to them (John xiv : 26. ) Their 
words had authority, because they were His words. It is He who speaks 
in the Epistles. So it is not Peter but Christ who enjoins, 1 Peter v : 8 : 
" Be sober [N//ii;are=" Drink not," " abstain from wine "] ; be vigilant • 
because your adversary the Devil, as a roaring Hon, walketh about, seek- 
ing whom he may devour " [Karam?] = "drink or swallow down]. " Here 
is Teetotalism, and that, too, in its most condensed and positive form. 
Every word is to the point. Drink not, for thereby you throw open all the 
doors of temptation, put reason and conscience to sleep, and leave the 
soul all unguarded and exposed to the immediate inroad of a prowling 
Devil, who, like a roaring Hon, raging and athirst, stands ready to gulp 
you down as you gulp your wine. This being Christ's teaching by 
the Holy Ghost, who can doubt that His own practice was conformed to 
it? "All things are lawful, but all things are not expedient." 

" The Son of Man came eating and drinking," by which only is meant 
that He was bound by no vow of abstinence, hke John ; that is to say, 



214 T PI EEV ANGEL. 

Must be sought out, provided 'tis forbid : 
And man would starve and die of very thirst, 
If he must analyze all nature first. 

Conscience at ease on lawfulness of use, 
In view of all the evils of abuse, 
Asking its duty, may receive reply, 
Thundered from every quarter of the sky : 
If eating meat, or drinking wine offend, 
Eat not forever ! drink not to the end ! 

his colour in the cup, when it moveth Hke a serpent, and stingeth hke an 
itself aright. 32At the last it biteth adder, ssfhine eyes shall behold 

He was not a Nazarite. His was a free life, but a spotless one. The vile 
insinuation that " He was a glutton and wine-bibber," had no better foun- 
dation than that He was seen eating with those who ate and drank. It is 
not said that He drank Himself, only ate. We read : " When the scribes 
and Pharisees saw Him eat with publicans and sinners, they said to His 
disciples, How is it that He eateth and drinketh ['and drinketh,' was, not 
unlikely, a mahcious addition, for they only saw Him ' eat ' ] with publicans 
and sinners? When Jesus heard it, He saith unto them, they that are 
whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick. I came not 
to call the righteous but sinners to repentance," Mark ii : i6, 17. 

This explains His social condescensions and social freedoms. A 
haughty aloofness, Pharisaic scrupulosity, or Essenic rigidity, would have 
frustrated the designs of His mission. He, the Divine Healer, came to 
heal those who needed heaHng, including lepers and outcasts. He could 
do them good only by direct ministries. He must know them, and they 
must know Him, and take what He had to give. He sat at their tables 
not to receive but to communicate. There was much doubtless that was 
uncongenial and revolting in such intercourse, but the physician expects 
to encounter infection and foulness, and thinks to be dainty or squeamish 
or nice ill befits his office. 

We have seen Christ in the character of a Guest, but did He never act 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 21$ 

What though no law expressly doth ordain ; 
'Tis noble, God-like, Christ-like, to abstain. 
Love is that law all other laws above, 
And nothing 's so imperative as love : 
All comprehending, like the arms of space. 
In love's wide heaven no duty but finds place : 
Love o'ersweeps the whole, and not a part — 
No law so broad as is the Christian's heart. 

To legislate each duty, were to count 
Drops of a stream that issue from one fount. 



strange women, and thine heart thou shalt be as he that heth down 
shall utter perverse things. ^* Yea, in the midst of the sea, or as he that 

the part of a Host? Yea, verily. Under the open sky in His own house 
of the universe. He performed the rites of a divine hospitaUty on the grand- 
est scale ; on one occasion, feeding a hungry multitude of four thousand, 
on another, five thousand. Was wine deemed necessary to the feast, and 
did He provide wine ? Not a drop. There was a superabundance of 
food, but no wine. Surely this fact is not without significance. 

While it can in no wise be proved, only inferred, that Christ even so 
much as tasted fermented wine, we know no absolute reason why He 
should not, and so far from caring to deny it, we prefer to assume it, for this 
cause if no other, that it takes absdnence out of the category of a super- 
stition, and from under the tyranny of an arbitrary appointment, and lifts 
it up into the liberty of an unprescribed voluntary Christian service, which 
respects times and circumstances, but is always loyal to conscience, quick 
to respond to the call of duty, however ascertained. No one, worthy the 
name of Chrisdan, stops to inquire, whether it is " so nominated in the 
bond," that he must abstain, if abstinence for any reason is advisable and 
best. 

Self-denial is the first condidon of discipleship. Christ's words are, " If 



2l6 THE EVANGEL. 

God gives, since all efYects are in their cause, 
For narrow prescripts universal laws. 
Jesus drank wine, and made it : that is clear : 
Let all admit it freely without fear : 
Wine of the cluster pressed into the cup, 
The wine of nature : yielding so much up, 
'T were slander, and not candor, to do more : 
'T were vile to say of Him whom we adore. 



lieth upon the top of a mast. ssThey and I was not sick ; they have beaten 
have stricken me, shalt thou say, me, and I felt it not ; when shall I 

any man will come after me, let liim deny himself, and take up his cross 
daily, and follow me," Luke ix : 23. He does not pardcularize. He 
merely states the principle. Its application to the innumerable details of 
daily life is left to every man's conscience. The difference is immense 
between an adjustable rule of this sort, and a divine law of prohibition, 
strict, unbending, absolute, tolerant of no departure under any circum- 
stances whatever, having respect to one thing alone, forbidding wine, 
making contraband and unlawful everything which bears that name, while 
the use of other things, equally seductive and pernicious, such as opium 
and hashish, is permitted. To make the law consistent with itself, it 
would need to include every substance, liquid or solid, that contains 
alcohol. But a rational obedience to such a law would be impossible ; at 
the utmost it could be only a wooden obedience to a name. The poison 
may lurk unseen and unsuspected, and how are we to know whether it is 
present or not ? By its effects? Alas, then it is too late. Whether we 
doubted beforehand, or did not doubt, having drunk or eaten that which 
was forbidden, we are equally damned — damned in an}^ case. Such ex- 
ceptional legislation could not be from God. He loves us too well to 
make sport with our souls after such fashion. Let us rejoice that we are 
not Mussulmen, but Christians. 

The general duty of self-denial enjoined in the Gospels, is exhibited in 
the Epistles more in detail, with specifications of particular vices to be 
shunned. Warnings against drunkenness are frequent : and abstinence 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 2 1/ 

He first Himself some heady liquor sips, 
Then holds the poison to His neighbor's lips ; 
Dispensing bowls, foul outside and within, 
With wrath, uncleanness, drunkenness, and sin. 

Since wine 's not one, but many — one in name, 
Many in kind ; the same and not the same ; 
Of hurtful strength in various degree — 



awake? I will seek it yet again. uel, it is not for kings to drink wine ; 
xxxi : 4. It is not for kings, O Lem- not for princes strong drink : s Lest 

from wine is commended or commanded in terms, whose force and directness 
can only be fully appreciated in the original. The literal meaning of the 
word translated "be sober," is, as shown above, "drink not;" and that 
rendered " temperance" {enkrateid) is "inner sovereignty," expressive of 
the absoluteness of the self-control to be exercised. There was an ancient 
sect of abstainers, Q.-a}i\&^ Enkmtites (the same word), or Encrats, as we 
might call them, having already anglicised the related words of autocrat, 
aristocrat and democrat. On the strength, probably, of those passages 
in his First Epistle, where the word occurs three times, Peter was said to 
belong to them ; but he based his encratic abstinence on Christian rea- 
sons, and not on the Manichean ground of the impurity of matter as they 
did. His abstinence was like His Master's, rational, not superstitious, 
not Manichean, not Mohammedan, but Christian. Teetotalism is this, 
and no more. 

Strange to say, there are those who deny our right to abstain. Total 
abstinence they say is rebellion. Christ calls us to drink. No matter if 
there is danger in it, it is our duty to face it. We must fight, not run. 
He wants brave men, not cowards. No texts are given in support of this, 
and there are none. Christ never taught after this manner. He, knowing 
what is in man, the liability of the best to fall, ceased not to warn against a 
vain self-confidence and a false security. " Simon, Simon, behold, Satan 
hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat : but I have prayed 
for thee that thy faith fail not. . . Pray that ye enter not into temptation," 



2X8 THEEVANGEL. 

There's room at least for common charity. 
Void of effects and safe, He would not seek 
The unapparent bane minute and weak ; 
But though no pharisee to strain each gnat, 
What makes the feet to err, He drank not that. 
Of this be sure : though learning should essay 
To trip your faith, be confident alway, 



they drink, and forget the law, and afflicted. Deut. xxxii : 33. Their 
pervert the judgment of any of the wine is the poison of dragons, and 



Lulce xxii : 31, 32, 40. " Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation." 
" After this manner therefore pray ye, , . Lead us not into temptation." 
It was the witty quibble of one of the most brilliant preachers of his day, 
more than thirty years ago, when this petition was appealed to in support 
of the principle of total abstinence : " True, but we are not told to pray, 
lead us not into probation," A few months afterward he was deposed 
from the ministry on account of intemperance. It was subsequent to his 
recovery, that meeting him, he volunteered the admission, in alluding to 
former discussions, that he had been entirely and fatally in the wrong. 

The fact is, no one is safe. The appetite created by the use of alcohohc 
drinks, is as much beyond our control as the revolution of the planets. 
We know that there are idiosyncracies ; that whereas one man cannot take 
a single dose of mercury without being salivated, another can take a thou- 
sand. Ordinarily, however, in a period varying in different persons, sali- 
vation or mercurialism ensues. Precisely so with alcohol. There is a 
difference in tolerance. Alcoholism, oinomania, or dipsomania, or what- 
ever else you please to call it, is slowly induced in some, in some rapidly. 
But one might as well say that he will not be salivated, as that he will 
preserve to himself a thirst normal and healthy. At a moment when he 
least expects it, the delayed and smothered effect is liable to burst out into 
fierce flame and burn inextinguishably. Of course, all who drink do not 
become drunkards, any more than do all who take mercury become sali- 
vated, but they run the risk of becoming so. What occurs in one is liable 
to occur in all. Any one who should presume upon his possessing a phy- 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 219 

No devil leered above the wine-cup's brim ; 
No mocker mocked from depths reflecting Him. 
He would not, never did, and could not do, 
What were unworthy sinful me and you — 
To men that had well drunk, present and press 
Enticements and temptations to excess. 
Did other proof in contradiction fail, 

the cruel venom of asps. Hab. ii : neighbor drink, that puttest thy 
15. Woe unto him that giveth his bottle to him, and makest him 



sical nature different from others, and on the strength of this should take 
arsenic or some other deadly poison, would be accounted a madman or a 
fool. We blame the drunkard and despise him, but why ? He cannot 
help the thirst that dominates over him ; but he could have helped that 
rash tampering with the causes that produced it, and for this he is respon- 
sible. The folly and the guilt lie in the tampering, all the rest is law. 

Here is the sufficient answer to those who are fond of saying that the 
Gospel is the only adequate remedy for intemperance as well as every other 
vice. The Gospel was not designed to effect physical changes. It is not 
curative of disease. In one point of view, at least, the appetite for alcoholic 
stimulants is of the nature of a physical depravity, rather than moral. It is 
not so much a mental bias to evil, as a perversion of vital sensibilities — a 
disease superinduced by the violation of physiological laws. Argument 
and motive are therefore of little avail. The sharp goadings and incessant 
cravings of a diseased appetite are not to be silenced in this way. As well 
might we, ignoring Physiology and Therapeutics, seek to allay the thirst of 
fever, or the bulimia of dyspepsia, by reading the New Testament. The 
drunkard, Tantalus-like, tormented and devoured by a perpetual thirst, 
is not in a state to be influenced by moral considerations. No force of 
will is sufficient to maintain a very protracted contest with the ever-pres- 
ent, terrible, interminable teasing of a depraved appetite. The first step 
in an attempted reformation, therefore, must be the removal of the appe- 
tite, and nothing will do this but an entire abstinence from its provoca- 
tives and inducing causes. This is common sense and gospel too. What 
would be thought of that Christian minister who should be guilty of the 



220 THE EVANGEL. 

His character, unaided, should avail 
To give assurance, stablish and define. 
The wine He made was unfermented wine. 
Tell if you can, unless it had been such. 
Why it was requisite to make so much ? 
Abundance argues innocence, since He 
Would not supply the means of revelry, 

drunken also. I Tim. iii : 2. A " that does not drink," lest he drink 
bishop must be. .vigilant \v7j(bdXLov, and forget the law, etc. — Th. vr](po), 

mockery of going to such an one, and saying, " Repent and be converted, 
but do not leave off drinking : Christ wants brave men, not cowards." 

Undoubtedly, opium and alcohol produce effects which differ, but they 
agree in this, that used habitually, they alike tend, by a law as constant 
as gravitation itself, to establish a tyranny, compared with which chains, 
racks, dungeons, and whatever else go to make up the material apparatus 
of the most cruel despotism, are as nothing. For these are outside of the 
man, and leave the soul untouched. But here the demon of tyranny 
enters within ; puts fetters on the soul itself; cripples every faculty ; cuts 
the sinews of the will, and reduces the man to a sta.te of utter abjectness, 
where all power of resistance is lost, and the unhappy victim is led captive 
by him at his will. We all know the power of habit ; how like the poisoned 
robe of Nessus, fatal to Hercules, once put on the chnging mischief can 
no more be put off, so to speak, than the skin itself; and if flaying were 
practicable, it would hardly then accomplish the object, for the virus 
would have already passed into the blood [in succum et sanguinem) and 
infected every part. If this be true of habit in general, much more is it 
true when there is the concurrence and added strength of a depraved 
appetite, like that engendered by the use of alcoholic or narcotic poisons, 
acting not only as a force pushing and urging from behind — a kind of vis 
a tergo — but begetting hkewise a fatal proneness and proclivity to ruin, 
sloping and steepening the descent more and more toward the abyss, until 
the downward course becomes at last like the impetuous hurry and inev- 
itable rush of the waters of some mighty cataract just before the final 
plunge. 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 221 

Just when the thirst was kindled ; slope the way, 
And snare their feet He taught to watch and pray. 

Distrust appearances ! Be sure they lie 
If they eternal verities deny. 
Christ's character is sure. Be not beguiled ! 
He who is holy, harmless, undefiled, 

V7], not, ttlca), to drink — be teetotal in mind — and] of good behaviour 
thathemaybelsober [(yw^pova, sane given to hospitality; apt to teach 



" The Confessions of a Drunkard," by Charles Lamb (" Elia"), are in 
point: "The evil is acknowledged, the remedy simple. Abstain. . . . 
Begin a reformation, and custom will make it easy. But what if the be- 
ginning be dreadful, the first steps not like climbing a mountain but going 
through fire ? . . What if a process comparable to flaying alive be gone 
through ? I have known one in that state, when he has tried to abstain but 
for one evening, though the poisonous potion had ceased to bring back its 
first enchantments, to scream out, to cry aloud, for the anguish and pain 
of the strife within him. Why should I hesitate to declare that the man 
of whom I speak is myself! . . But is there no middle way betwixt 
total abstinence and the excess which kills you ? With pain I must utter 
the dreadful truth, that there is none, none that I can find." He closes 
with the warning, "Stop in time." Prevention is better than cure, and 
total abstinence is prevention. 

We deny that there is any fallacy, great or small, in Teetotalism. It is 
as sound in principle as beneficent in practice. The argument in its favor 
is 

" One entire and perfect chrysolite," 

without a single flaw, A wilder absurdity was never broached, than 
that we are not as free to say, we will henceforth abstain from wine or 
whiskey, as to say, we will abstain from opium or hashish. If it can be 
proved that they are innocent, we are free to abstain ; if it can be shown 
that they are hurtful, and that abstinence will be beneficial to ourselves or 
others, we are bound to abstain. It is a good reason for abstinence if our 



222 THE EVANGEL. 

Could do no wrong, nor yet what tends to wrong ; 
Is mindful of the weak and of the strong; 
Leads none into temptation. Never fear 
But what the cause of temperance is dear 
To Him, who needs not any should Him tell, 
What is the shortest, surest road to hell. 
Prove that a thing is hurtful on the whole, 



[by precept and example, so] ^jsJot wine ; separate, remote from wine 
given towine[|"^ Trdpotvov, notnear wherein is ex'cess, violence, outrage.] 



use is others' misuse, if it merely lends sanction to a dangerous custom. 
The contagion of disease is not so bad as the contagion of a corrupt, or 
if you please, a corrupted example. How awful, should some one stum- 
ble over us into hell ! " We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities 
of the weak, and not to please ourselves," Rom. xv : i. Let no one dare 
to sneer at such a scheme of conduct and theory of life ! We undertake 
to say, that go to any one you will, and ask him whether he can give up 
his brandy or his wine or his beer, and he will tell you, " Yes, just as well 
as not ; it would not cost me the slightest effort." Now we have the right 
to take such persons at their word, and insist that they make this paltry 
sacrifice, which they say will cost them so little, if not for reasons that 
concern their own safety, then for the sake of humanity. 

What if all could be prevailed upon to renounce the use of intoxicating 
drinks of every kind ; would it not be a good thing ? You say it is easy — 
ought not all then to do it, seeing this would infallibly put an end to the 
woes of intemperance ? Abstinence from all that intoxicates uproots the 
evil, dries up its source, in a word, annihilates it. All this is so clear that 
there is no room for doubt or denial, but there is, it seems, for ridicule. 
True, very true, they say, abstain from drinking and there will be no 
more drunkenness; and so abstinence from eating would put an end to 
gluttony. Such quibbling is entirely unworthy of men of sense, and on 
so serious a subject it is wicked. Who does not see that the cases are not 
parallel, inasmuch as one respects the necessaries of life, and the other 
that which is in no wise needful or useful ; and that while abstinence from 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 223 

Is dangerous to the body and-the soul, 

And you may swear that thing is not for you ; 

That Christ condemns it, and forbids it too. 

Wine is a mocker, therefore drink not wine ! 
It is a Christ-hke reason and divine. 
All Christ's commands invariably rest 



I Thess. V : 6. Therefore let us watch and be sober [vr/(l)cojutv== 
not sleep, as do others ; but let us drink not] ; "For they that sleep 

the former is impossible or fatal, abstinence from the latter is not only 
practicable, but, by the unanimous testimony of those best qualified to 
speak the world over, positively and pre-eminently salutary. In England, 
not long ago, upward of two thousand physicians and surgeons, including 
such men as Sir Benjamin Brodie, Sir James Clarke, Dr. Ferguson, Dr. 
Forbes, Dr. Marshall Hall, Aston Key, Dr. Latham, Dr. Andrew Combe, 
etc., etc., united in declaring: " That in their opmion, the most perfect 
health is compatible with Total Abstinence from all intoxicating bever- 
ages, whether in the form of ardent spirits, or as wine, beer, ale, porter, 
cider, etc., etc. ;" and " that Total and Universal Abstinence from alcoholic 
drinks of all sorts would greatly contribute to the health, the prosperity, 
the morality and the happiness of the human race." The fact that it 
serves no useful purpose in the animal economy takes away all excuse 
from those who drink. They drink without need ; not from want, but wan- 
tonness. It is uncalled-for hazard and gratuitous harm. All is for nought. 
The case stands thus : Here is an evil, a plague of immeasurable mahg- 
nancy, 

" Whose deep taint 

With slow perdition murders the whole man, 

Body and soul." 

A dreadful ubiquity belongs to it. It is universal as the air. There is 
one remedy and only one. It is simple, sure and all-sufficient. It con- 
sists in an easy and blessed abstinence which involves no self-denial, or 
none which is not directly beneficial to the individual himself. He who 



224 THE EVANGEL. 

On what is reasonable and right and best. 

The best is still commanded : find that out 

And you may follow it without a doubt. 

If it be best to drink, if safe and wise, 

Then, drink ! ye have permission of the Skies. 

But if it be, as all experience shows. 

Not best, not safe, not wise, since countless woes 



sleep in the night. ?But let us who =" be abstainers from wine."] 
are of the day, be sober [v?/^w//fv i Peter v : 8, 9. Be sober [N^rpart 

abstains acquits himself of all responsibility. It is not his fault if the evil 
continues to ravage. His hands are clean. The guilt, if there is any, 
belongs to those who deliberately refuse to apply the cure. As to them, 
it is not easy to see wherein their criminality differs in kind or degree from 
that of the physician who, possessing a catholicon of sure efficacy, has it 
in his power instantly to arrest an epidemic like cholera, but refuses to do 
it. If such refusal makes him an ally of the pestilence, and accountable 
for its desolations, why, in the other case, is there not fellowship of guilt 
in every murder and every suicide caused by the drinking customs of 
society? Others may hesitate as to their duty ; but for our own part, we 
could not be more certain of ours, if it were written on the firmament, or 
" thundered from every part of the Azimuth." 

In conceding that Christ may have drunk intoxicating wine, it is possi- 
ble that we concede too much ; for while it is true, that there is nothing 
necessarily wrong in drinking intoxicating wine in an unintoxicating 
quantity, it is equally true that the tendency is always to exceed that. 
Indeed, to stop short of an exhilarating effect, that is, incipient intoxica- 
tion, is to fail of the object for which it is usually drunk. If drank only to 
quench thirst, unintoxicating wine or pure water would do as well or bet- 
ter. Undeniably, to drink for the purpose of intoxication in the slightest 
degree is sin. The motive is evil, and the effect evil. While intoxication 
affects all the organs, it affects none so much or so injuriously as the brain, 
the seat of the mind, whose manifestations it disturbs, producing a spir- 
itual bouleversement — soul anarchy and moral overthrow. " The kingdom 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 



225 



Proceed therefrom in a perpetual stream, 
Drink not ! it is forbid by the Supreme. 

If there is wine which tends to no excess, 
Then prohibition would be meaningless ; 
And such there is. Learned Rabbis say, the Jews, 
At marriage festivals, did never use 

=drink not], be vigilant; because about as a roaring lion, seel<ing 
your adversary, the devil, goeth wliom he may devour [tiaTairi^ 

of heaven within " is loosened in all its foundations ; for it is impossible 
to be filled with wine and with the Spirit at the same time. The former 
inevitably displaces the latter, and instead of the Christian, or even the 
man, there is an unchained devil. It is true, all persons are not alike. 
Some, like Cassio, have " unhappy brains for drinking," in whom a single 
cup, though " craftily quahfied," suffices to work subversive "innova- 
tion;" while others require "potations pottle-deep." and can only be 
"flustered with flowing cups" many times repeated. AUhough the 
transformations vary, it is a "foul disfigurement," and a shameful uncov- 
ering in all. 

We are told, i Cor. vi : 10, " Drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom 
of God;" but the question arises, when is a man drunk, and when is he 
to be counted a drunkard ? To fall under the ban, must he reel in the 
street and have his home in the gutter ? or is it enough that every day 
after dmner he sips his wine until his heart is merry ? If Christ had drunk 
Himself, or designed that we should drink, He would, it seems to us, have 
told us how far we could go without peril to our souls. As it is we are left 
m the dark, and may damn ourselves without knowing it. Dr. Johnson 
owing to the extreme difficulty of finding the proper hmit or keepin- 
withm It, judged it best to abstain altogether. This was prudent Wist 
dom dwells with prudence (Prov. viii : 12) : and it must be that abstinence 
is "accordmg to the good pleasure of His will," who "hath abounded 
toward us m all wisdom and prudence " (Eph. i : 5, 8). 

In those prescientific days men, it is true, knew nothing of alcohol as a 
separate product, but they knew its power and effects as well as we. Fer- 
15 



226 THE EVANGEL. 



Fermented wine. Of leaven, every shred 
They from the Feast of the Unleavened Bread 
Cast out. And at the Supper of the Lord, 



/from Kara, " down," and tticj, "to Num. vi : 2. When either man or 
drink "=drink or swallow down] . woman shall separate themselves 



mentation was a familiar phenomenon, and they were not ignorant of its 
significance. In determining the nature of the change, the principal 
physiological test relied on by modern investigators was equally open to 
them. They drank and were drunken. They saw, without the aid of any 
chemical analysis, that the innocent juice of the grape had been converted 
into a powerful poison, which they hkened to the venom of the deadhest 
of serpents. Undoubtedly whatever intoxicates is a poison. No new 
discovery can destroy an old fact. Arsenic will not more certainly kill, 
than alcohol as it exists in wine. Wine is a poison in the same sense that 
opium is a poison. It is scientific trifling to dispute it. Of course, even 
poisons have their use. Opium has a medical value far beyond that of 
wine or brandy. The physician could do without these, but for this 
supreme antidote to pain he knows of no substitute. On account of its 
incomparable powers in this respect, it deserves to be called, as it has 
been, " The great gift of God." But, alas ! these very qualities, which in 
the time of suffering, make opium seem an angel of mercy divinely com- 
missioned to relieve, have made it to Mohammedan countries, what alco- 
hol in its various forms has been to Christian lands, by the infernal 
might of its sorceries and enchantments, the satanic deceiver and destroyer 
of the nations. 

The question, Was the wine used at the institution of the Lord's Sup- 
per fermented wine or unfermented ? resolves itself into another. Which 
of the two was used in celebradng the Passover ? For a sure answer we 
need only to consult Ex. xii : 8, 15, 18-20, and compare the account there 
given with Matt, xxvi : 17-29 ; Mark xiv : 11-25 ; Luke xxii : 7-20. The 
command laid upon the Israelites in regard to the observance of the Pass- 
over, it will be seen, is express and positive, that on the first day of the 
feast, all leaven, and by necessary implication, things leavened, shall be 
put away out of their houses, on pain of excision. " Seven days shall 
there be no leaven found in your houses : for whosoever eateth that which 
is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, " 
Ex. xii : 19. Nothing can be clearer, therefore, than that if Christ and 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 22/ 

Fi-uit of the vine expressly crowned the board. 
As on these two occasions, chief and prime, 
According to the custom of the time, 

to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to sep- ^He shall separate himself from 
arate themselves unto the Lord; wine and strong drink, and shall 

"His apostles drank fermented wine they broke the law both in its letter 
and spirit ; for although no wine of any kind entered into the Paschal 
Supper originally, and was added afterward, it would, manifestly, have 
been a making void and stultification of the whole ordinance to have join- 
ed to unfermented bread fermented wine. As a Hebraist, no name carries 
with it greater weight than Gesenius, and we have his authority for say- 
ing, that the Hebrew word, which the English translators have rendered 
■leaven, applies to wine as well as bread. 

Even if we could suppose that the Jews were not aware of the identity 
'Of the two fermentations— /a«arv, or that which takes place in bread ; and 
vinous, or that which takes place in the juice of fruit— it would be absurd 
as well as impious to atfribute such ignorance to Him who z;z«<^tf wine. 
But the Jews did know: and were not, moreover, it would seem, far 
behind the most advanced chemists of the present day, in divining the true 
nature and meaning of the process we call fermentation, as synonymous 
with corruption and decay. When the word leaven is used figuratively, it 
is almost always in a bad sense. " Beware of the leaven [/. e. the corrupt 
■doctrine] of the Pharisees and Sadducees." "Know ye not that a Httle 
leaven leaveneth the whole lump ? Purge out, therefore, the old leaven, 
that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our 
Passover is sacrificed for us : Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the 
old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the 
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth," i Cor. v : 6-8. This metaphoric 
leaven, conceived of as the moral means of a mahgnant metamorphosis— 
an evil of such concentrated potency that, like some deadly virus intro- 
duced into the veins, the smallest quantity suffices for a universal corrup- 
tion of the character, is evidently based on a true conception of what 
leaven is— essential rottenness and a cause of rottenness. That the 
ancient Romans were not, any more than the Jews, ignorant of the rela- 
tion which fermentation bears to corruption, we have this direct proof 
from Plutarch, who says : " The leaven itself is born from corruption, and 
corrupts the mass with which it is mixed." 



228 THE EVANGEL. 

Christ only drank the unfermented juice 

Of the pressed grape, we know no other use. 



drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar drink any liquor of grapes, [even 
of strong drink, neither shall he gx2^-^Q\\i\Q.€\nor eat moist grapes, or 



This agrees exactly with what we are told respecting it in Turner's 
Chemistry, edited by Baron Liebig : "Fermentation is nothing else but 
the putrefaction of a substance containing no nitrogen." The ripe grape 
when taken from the vine is still alive, and so is the contained juice at the 
moment it is expressed. But death soon ensues, after which fermentation 
begins, which is only another name for decomposition, of which the first 
result is the formation of alcohol, and carbonic acid gas causing a boiling 
or effervescence whence the name. Unless arrested by art, the process 
goes on until the destruction and resolution are complete. Panary or 
bread fermentation differs from the vinous chiefly in this, that it does not 
take place spontaneously, but is induced by the addition and presence of 
a ferment, or leaven, described in chemical language as " a nitrogenized 
substance already in a state of putrefaction " — sour or spoiled dough, for 
example, dough in a state of active decay. Here, also, the resulting pro- 
duct is alcohol, and carbonic acid gas, which in its effort to escape be- 
comes entangled in the dough, thereby causing it to swell up. It is now 
immediately put into the oven, and subjected to the action of heat, which, 
while it arrests the tendency to sourness and decay, drives off the alcohol. 
Although the quantity of spirit lost in a single family baking is trifling, it 
is enormous taken as a whole, amounting, it is said, to three hundred 
thousand gallons annually in London alone ; and in the German customs 
union to seven and a half millions. To collect this waste, there was at 
one time £20,000 expended in Chelsea, London, without result. Of 
unleavened bread we have famihar examples in sea-biscuit, or pilot and 
navy biscuit, etc. In the form of oaten or barley cakes it is still largely 
used by the peasantry of Scotland and Ireland. " Beer, ale, wine and 
cider work by means of the leaven in them." — Rees. Leaven answers 
to the Hebrew Seor, whose radical meaning, like the Greek Zymee (C^/^?7, 
from Cfw, to boil, to bubble), and like the Latin fermentum (from ferveo, 
to boil, to foam) is effervescence, showing that this characteristic sign of 
fermentation, which, visible enough in a solid, like dough, is still more so 
in a liquid, like grape-juice, was known as far back as the birth of lan- 
guage ; so that it is an impossible supposition that the Jews used leavened 
wine at the Passover, not knowing it was leavened. 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 229 

Thou who, blest Alchemist, canst bind and loose 
The elements; and under Thee reduce 
All parts and powers and properties of things ; 

dried. ''And all the days of his sep- made of the vine tree, from the 
aration shall he eat nothing that is kernels even to the husk 

In the Sunday Magazine, edited by Thomas Guthrie, D. D., we find 
an interesting article on Passover Observances among Jews of the present 
day. The hunt for leaven, we are told, begins a month before the Pass- 
over. It is a bustling time with the Jewish housewives. The purgation 
extends to house and furniture. There is no end to sweeping and scour- 
ing. " Paint is scrubbed, walls are wiped, cupboards are emptied, and 
the contents of unlikeliest corners are turned out as the unwearied search 
goes on. Not until every carpet, curtain, blanket and sheet has been 
shaken ; not i;ntil every table, chair and sofa has been wiped and dusted ; 
not until every book has been taken down from the shelf, to make sure 
that a crumb of bread has not found a resting-place between its pages, 
can the house be pronounced as pure, or its inmates be allowed to take 
part with clear conscience in the solemnities of the coming feast. 

"And this is not all, or nearly all. Every thing that has been used for 
kitchen purposes, or for table service during the past year, must be care- 
fully cleaned and put away. A complete set of crockery-ware, cutlery and 
glass, as well as of cooking utensils and kitchen necessaries, down to the 
smallest article thai by any possibihty can be needed for the preparation 
of human food, must be provided for Passover use. If not actually new 
for the occasion, it must be established beyond all doubt, that they have 
never been used for any other purpose. Then comes the purification 
of silver and plated goods. Having been thoroughly cleansed with whit- 
ing, which is allowed to dry on them before it is rubbed off, they are 
dipped three times in boiling water. Not until this has been done is it 
supposed that the pollution contracted from the touch of leavened food is 
at an end. The cleansing of the grate and oven are among the last things 
done before the feast, and are generally left till late in the day before. 
The dresser too has its own ceremonial. Although plates, dishes and 
cups, which have been defiled by the touch of leavened food, have been 
taken down and locked away ; the very shelves themselves are held to be 
polluted, in spite of scrubbing, soap and flannel. So they are covered 
with new boards not nailed down, or with paper. The same is done to 
tables that have been used for eating or preparing food. 



230 THE EVANGEL. 

Whose word is swifter than the swiftest wings, 
Piercing the depths, where all the forces lurk 
Of secret nature, powerfully to work 

" If a Jew happens to carry on a trade in fermented articles, one who is 
a wine and spirit merchant for example, a rabbinical ordinance calls 
upon him to let his premises, and transfer the whole of his stock to a 
Christian before the commencement of the Passover Feast, In England 
this has wholly passed out of use, but not in stricter continental countries. 
The Jews, in their religious feasts, use wine made from raisins, etc., etc." 
For the divine prohibition of leaven, so often repeated and so solemnly 
enforced, there must have been some deep reason common to all cases. 
The hurry of departure is only applicable to the Passover. By virtue of 
what evil quality was it, then, that leaven was counted unclean, and ex- 
cluded from all things offered in sacrifice, according to Lev; ii : ii, " NO' 
meat offering which ye shall bring unto the Lord, shall be made with 
leaven ? " The chief reason was undoubtedly this : Leaven is suggestive 
of corruption, and so to offer any thing leavened, leavened bread or lea- 
vened wine, in sacrifice would be judged as incongruous and unseemly 
as to offer the putrid corse of some animal. The " strong wine " (Heb. 
sheckar) directed to be poured out to the Lord as a drink-offering (Num. 
xxviii : 7) was not wine, fermented or otherwise, for the word thus rendered,, 
properly designates no particular liquor, but is an exhaustive expression 
for all kinds of liquor except wine, whether fermented or not. Our word 
cider comes from it [Heb. sheckar; Gr. ciKepa; L. sicera ; It. sidro ; Fr. 
cidre ; A. S. and Dut. cider\. Wickliffe's version of Luke i : 15, reads, 
' ' He shall not drink wine nor cider ' ' — cider being here used doubtless in the 
old sense now obsolete, embracing, like the Hebrew and Greek originals, 
all liquors save wine. The epithet " strong" is gratuitous and misleading. 
In opposition to those who deny (for what is not denied by somebody?) 
that unfermented grape-juice is wine at all, we maintain that not only is it 
wine, but wine preeminently, the original, the true, as being nearest lo the 
parent vine, and overflowing with the abundance of its life. Every step of 
that process called fermentation, whereby innocent sugar is converted into 
the devil of alcohol, is of the nature of a removal and eloignment. Wine and 
vine are etymologically the same. The Greeks called the vine "the 
mother of wine " (olvofir/Tup). Properly, " oinos " is only then the child 
of the vine, when vinous and vital, it represents "the wine of the cluster," 
"the pure blood of the grape." Death follows life, and corruption death, 
and there results a deadly something which men call wine, but wrongly, for 
it is no longer vinous. The vine disowns it. It is a corpse not a living 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 23 1 

Miraculous transformations, which are not 
By ordinary processes begot, 

thing— a hideous vampire straight from hell. Alcohol is not wine, but an 
atrocious usurper of its name and rights. 

In the formation of language, nouns precede verbs, and so the order 
of naming was doubtless this : first oinee, the vine; then omos, the 
product of the vine ; and lastly oinoo, to wine, to make wine-drunk, to 
into.xicate. So, too, from niethu (" strong, unmixed wine ") came the verb 
methuo, lit. to drink " methu." Neither "oinoo" nor " methuo" determine 
the quantity drunk nor the effect produced. But since to drink wine at 
all is to drink it to excess (the temperance argument by the way), the 
secondary meaning soon supplanted the first almost entirely ; and so to 
drink " methu," and to drink " oinos," meaning here, of course, the fer- 
mented article, came to be equivalent to getting drunk. How strikingly 
this enforces the apostolic warning: " Be not drunk with wine wherein is 
excess ! " — the excess, be it observed, inheres, is ifi the thing itself, forms 
a part of its very essence, is not so much an affair of quantity as quality. 
Food satisfies ; but here it is otherwise. It is the insatiable " horse-leech's 
daughter,'" whose cry is eternally for more. What an argument etymol- 
ogy furnishes ! Intoxication means " a poisoning," and Alcohohsm is a 
synonym of Oinomania, Methomania, and Dipsomania or Thirst-madness. 

Because wine is a generic term, it cannot define itself. For this, some 
qualifying adjective— hke new, sweet, fermented or unfermented is needed. 
We commonly say wine, without specifying the kind. When we do so, it is 
generally for a purpose. Had not the Pentecostal mockers intended a mock 
they would have said simply, These men are drunk, instead of '' These 
men are full of new wine," [7;i£D/coi;r=" sweet wine," "must"]. Their 
object was ridicule; and the humor lay in the fact, that sweet wine was 
not intoxicating— as Aristotle says, Olvo- ■^\ b fxev ylvKv^.dth Kaiov 
/j.sdvjKet, Modern wit, imitatively jocose, seeing a man more than 
ordinarily drunk, makes no doubt that new cider or spruce beer or the pump 
has been the guilty cause. Peter, replying to the sneer not to the words, says : 
" These men are not drunken [iuf&vovaiv=metAued], as you suppose." 

Gleukos. and Mustum, unhke Oinos and Vinum , express specijica/ly new 
wine. But nothing is more certain than that " glukus," sweet ; and "mus- 
tum," new, fresh, were originally defining adjectives, and when afterwards 
they were used substantively, oinos and vinuni were always understood [wit- 
ness Aristotle quoted above, where "glukus" defines "oinos"; and the 
"vinum mustum" of Latin authors] showing conclusively that unferment- 
ed grape-juice was called wine from the first and always— just as apple-juice 



232 THE EVANGEL. 

But by immediate act of Power Divine, 
Effecting change of water into wine — 

is with us called cider as much at the moment it issues from the press as at 
any time subsequent ; and that it is only when we want lo define it or dis- 
tinguish it that we designate it as "new" or "sweet." The two cases 
are exactly parallel ; nobody can gainsay it ; and so a plain man, having 
this means of knowing the truth worth all the rest, can well afford to let 
learned doctors wrangle to their hearts' content. He has only to bear in 
mind that he lives in an apple instead of a grape growing country. 

In a foot-note to Mr. Beecher's Life of Christ we are told, that " none 
but a third-rate scholar adopts the view that the Bible describes two kinds 
of wine." This being die dictum of a scholar consciously _/f/-j'/-ra/^ might 
be conclusive but for one doubt — Is he sane? Has not much learning 
made him mad ? In all Translations hitherto made, two kinds of wine are 
recognized. In our English version perpetual mention is made of " new- 
wine," meaning "must." There are in Hebrew two words principally used 
for wine, viz. : Tirosh and Yayin. Tirosh, which occurs thirty-six times, is 
rendered "new wine," thirteen times ; " sweet wine " once: in the Ger- 
man, " most " ; and in the Spanish and Italian versions " mosto," gener- 
ally : while in the Greek (LXX) it is " oinos " throughout. Either, there- 
fore, " oinos" is of two kinds, or all the versions named, and many more 
which could be added, are wrong. 

Columella directs : " In order that your 77nist may always remain sweet 
as well as new," — " quemadmodum mustum semper dulce tanquam 
recens permaneat"— put it in a new amphora ; stop it up ; then immerse it 
in a cistern or pond of cold water. After forty days take it out, and it will 
remain sweet for a year." The Jews, instead of an earthen amphora, used 
bottles made of skin or leather ; and the new wine \_oivov viov, rendered 
"most" in Luther's translation] was put into ?iew bottles, for the plain 
comm.on sense reason, that a bottle previously used and impregnated 
with stale liquor would be sure to induce fermentation (so burst the bot- 
tle) when the object was to prevent it. The effect of keeping new wine 
or must in this way until it became old, was to make it "better." 

That grape-juice, pur ct simple, was highly prized, and thought not 
unworthy of royal palates, is shown by the chief butler's dream as told to 
Joseph, Gen. xl: 9-11. * * "And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and 
I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup. and I gave the 
cup into Pharaoh's hand." In the Greek he is called " Archioii/ochoos," 
literally, "the chief wme-pourer or wine-shedder." It is noteworthy, that the 
word used by our Lord, " shed for many " is radically the same word, cheo 
being the theme in both cases. So He, w-e conceive, acting as the " Archi- 



THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. 233 

Canst, yea and dost, in every time and place, 
Accomplish greater miracles of grace ; 

oinochoos " on that occasion, took the grapes, " the fruit of the vine" as 
He was careful to say, and pressed them into the cup, and while the pur- 
ple life of the crushed fruit (corresponding to the broken bread) was still 
flowing, uttered the words, "shed for many" — significant of the truth, 
" He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniqui- 
ties " — and then gave the cup into the hands of His disciples. How exact is 
the parallel ! how affecting the act ! In the spurting of the " blood " of the 
living grape as grasped by the hand, or trodden by the feet, there is man- 
ifest likeness to the warm blood gushing from a wound in a living person, 
fitting it to be a lively symbol of Christ's sufferings ; but in the defunct and 
deleterious liquor formed from it, there is the reverse of resemblance in 
every thing except color; and so being destitute of every quality of apt- 
ness for symbolical representation, to use it for such a purpose would 
seem to be almost a libel on the ordinance and a profanation of it ; and 
yet we are not prepared to say, that fermented wine was not used subse- 
quently, even in apostolic times ; for in the observance of the Lord's Sup- 
per by the Corinthian Church, it seems, "one was hungry and another 
drunken." Drunkenness, it must be admitted, proves the use of intoxi- 
cating wine, but proof is not approval. Such use, it may be, was one of 
the unseemly irregularities and corrupt practices, which the apostle so 
sharply rebukes. Of this we can be sure, that to drink and be drunken 
was to "drink unworthily," and was one of the ways in which the Cor- 
inthians drank "damnation to themselves." Their conduct is for warning, 
not imitation. What concord hath Christ with Bacchus, more than Belial ? 
Would Christ use what is so easily abused ; fly in the face of creation ; 
bless what is accursed ; pollute the passover by pouring out the unclean? 
Not so. That the wine of communion was azymous wine, new wine, 
sweet and sacred, made the festal token of a heavenly renewal of divine 
fellowship, is proved by His own words: " I will not drink henceforth of 
this fruit of the vine until I drink it «^w with you in my Father's Kingdom." 
Of all, this is the sum. Christ waa'^ wine. He was maker not manufacturer. 
The key-note to the miracle is creation. This alone renders it worthy 
and intelligible. "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." Christ was 
no Demiurge, but God. Not inferior nor different. The Word was with 
God and the Word was God. All things were made by Him. It was fit- 
ting that He should in the outset make this appear ; and so He did. In a 
miraculous moment He did, what in His ordinary working in nature, He 
takes four months to do. Such was His debut — an epiphany of Godhead; 
a demonstration to the whole universe that He was "over all, God bless- 



234 THE EVANGEL. 

Among the springs of thought and feeling move, 
Changing inveterate enmity to love. 



ed forever," (Rom. ix : 5). "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in 
Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory" — giving, in His own 
Divine Person, by a new genesis, as "in the beginning'' of the world, 
needed practical proof and illustration that God is ; that He is one, not 
two nor many ; that He created matter ; that nature is from Him ; that 
though He exists and operates in nature. He is not nature, but a Power 
apart from it and above ir, acting upon it from without in omnipotent 
freedom of will, and directing it to beneficent ends; that the God who 
feeds us is identical with the God who saves us — thus sweeping away all 
the hoary diabolisms of disbelief, bearing the names of Atheism, Dual- 
ism, Polytheism, Materialism, Pantheism and Fatalism. 

It is assumed, for this view necessitates it, that the wine of miracle \vas 
the same as the wine of nature, the wine of the cluster, holy and life-giv- 
ing, the type of all nourishment, and the type of salvation. The wine of 
art is not this. It represents evil rather than good. It is better fitted to 
typify destruction than creation. It is less a making than an unmak- 
ing. Alcohol is unmade sugar. Men brand it poison. Having no other 
name to call it by they call it " devil, " " the spew of the pit," " liquid fire 
and distilled damnation." These are hard names, but not too hard. To 
say that Christ made this thing of evil, would be, as we view it — perhaps 
we do not view it aright — to invert creation and stamp His initial miracle 
as diabolic rather than as divine. 

Jesus "came eating and drinking,'' in a Jewish ceremonial sense — that 
is to say. He was not " separated " as was Samson, Samuel, and John, to 
a life of abstinence, so that He might "eat nothing that was made of the 
vine tree from the kernels even to the husks," neither " grapes moist nor 
dried," nor drink any "liquor of grapes" fermented or unfermented 
(Num. vi : 3) ; but it does not follow that He ever drank fermented wine. 

Finally, Christianity is a principle, not a law. The imperfect has given 
place to the perfect. The new covenant is instead of the old. The old 
is defunct, the new survives. The cerements that wrap the dead are not 
for the living. The new does not supplement but supplant. It is com- 
plete in itself— a whole not a patch, not a new piece on an old garment. To 
avoid the infection of the old leaven, the new wine must be put into new 
bottles. " If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing." Chris- 
tianity is infinitely more than Judaism or Mahommedanism, but then it is 
Christianity in the sense of Christian Love. This fulfills all claims. Ab- 
stinence among the rest. Fly temptation ! Dare to be a coward 1 



T 



XV. 

FAREWELL: LAND OF GENNESARET. 



HE wedding over — after this first sign 



And attestation of His power divine, 
Convincing His disciples — He, intent 
To put fresh honor on the household, went 
Down to Capernaum, to nature's call 
And holy promptings just, postponing all 
Ulterior duties to the prior claims 
Of home and kindred founded on the names 
Of mother and of brethren, He and they 
With His disciples, talking by the way 
Of His great mission — came first to His own, 
And not His people of the Jews alone. 
But His own brethren in one womb begot 
Believed not on Him, and received Him not. 

John ii : 12. After this he went disciples : and they continued there 
down to Capernaum, he and his not many days. [John i : 11. He 
mother, and his brethren, and his came unto his own and his own re- 



236 THE EVANGEL. 

Not long they tarried. The Passover nigh, 
He, whom the paschal lamb did typify, 
The true Passover erelong to be slain. 
As was His yearly wont, had willed again 
To go up to Jerusalem. 'Twas early Spring, 
And Morning on the hill stood beckoning — 
The hill of Bashan, that high hill of God — 
With forward leaning, all a-tiptoe, shod 
With shoes of preparation. Rising higher 
Out of the land of worshipers of fire 
The worshiped sun, with shafts of flame uphurled, 
And soft salutatory light, awoke the world. 

Why leaped ye, ye high hills ? Ye Jesus saw 
Who rides upon the heavens by His name Jah, 
An earlier Sun, and rising ; heard that voice, 



ceived him not. John vii : 5. For Ezek. viii : 16. At the door of the 

neither did his brethren beUeve in temple of the Lord, between the 

him. j 13 And the Jews' Passover was porch and the altar, were a.bout five 

at hand, and Jesus went up to Jeru- and twenty men, with their backs 

salem. [i Cor. v : 7. For even toward the temple of the Lord, and 

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for their faces toward the east; and they 

us.] worshipped the sun toward the east. 

Ps. Ixviii : 15. The hill of God is Mark i : 35. And in the morning 

as the hill of Bashan : an high hill as rising up a great while before day, 

the hill of Bashan [Jebel Hauran]. he went out, and departed into a 

16 Why leaped ye, ye high hills? solitary place, and there prayed. 



farewell: land OF GENNESARET. 237 

Which makes the outgoings of the morn rejoice, 
In prayer and praise uphfted, while that yet 
In the deep waters of Gennesaret 
The mirrored stars were shining: wafted song, 
Borne on the charmed and dancing waves along. 
Across the Lake, and up the farther shore. 
And floating high the grassy uplands o'er 
Of kine and oak-producing Bashan, woke 
In you strange rapture — dumb, ye spoke. 
Hearing your Maker sing. But now you grieve, 
For that your Lord is ready you to leave. 

Sigh your farewell, send forth a piteous bleat, 
Ye hill- sides! and, ye bellowing vales, repeat 
The sadness! Lo, the pass among your hills 
A numerous caravan already fills — 



Deut. xxxii : 14. Butter of kine, Amos iv : i. Hear this word, ye kine 

and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, of Bashan. Is. ii : 12. 13. For the 

and rams of the breed of Bashan. day of the Lord of hosts shall be 

Ps. xxii : 12. Many bulls have com- upon every one that is proud and 

passed me : strong bulls of Bashan lofty, . . upon all the cedars of Leb- 

have beset me round. Ezek. xxxix : anon that are high and lifted up, 

18. Ye shall eat the flesh of the and upon all the oaks of Bashan. 

mighty, and drink the blood of the Ezek. xxvii : 5, 6. They have taken 

princes of the earth, of rams, of cedars from Lebanon to make masts 

lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, for thee [Tyre]. Of the oaks of 

all of them fatlings of Bashan. Bashan have they made thine oars. 



238 THE EVANGEL. 

The Valley of the Passengers on the east — 
To-day He joins them, going to the Feast. 

Mourn, Bashan ! Carmel, mourn ! behind Him left 
Your pastures languish, of the joy bereft 
Of His dear presence, as from parching drought. 
What can ye do these weary months without 
Your dew and sunshine? When no more, alas, 
He shall come down like rain upon the grass. 
Like showers that water plenteously the earth, 
Filling the garners and averting dearth. 

Look thy adieu, Gennesaret,^ sweet Plain, 
Garden of God ! look once, and look again : 



Ezek. xxxix : 11. The valley of the and Carmel shake off their fruits, 

passengers on the east of the sea. Nah. i : 4. Bashan languisheth, and 

Is. xxxiii : 9. The earth mourneth Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon 

and languisheth : Lebanon is languisheth. Jer. 1 : 19. I will bring 

ashamed and hewn down : Sharon Israel again to his habitation, and 

is like a wilderness: and Bashan he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan. 



* The Land of Gennesaret=" Garden of the Prince," was all its name 
imports, a veritable Paradise, if we may credit the description given of it 
by Josephus. " Along the Lake of Gennesaret," he says, " there extends 
a region of the same name of marvellous nature and beauty. Its soil is 
so rich that all sorts of trees can grow upon it. Walnuts which require 
the cool air, palm trees that grow best in hot air, fig trees and olives which 
demand an air more temperate, all flourish there. One may call this place 
the ambition of nature, where it forces those plants that are naturally 



farewell: land OF GENNESARET. 239 

Smile through thy tears, the Lord will not refuse 

Thy farewell wept in morning's glittering dews. 

Retreating mountains formed thee this retreat — 

This miracle of nature 'neath His feet, 

This bay of land, this beautiful recess, 

This earthly paradise, for 't is no less — 

One backward step they took thee room to make, 

Then forward one, returning to the Lake. 

O rich in fountains, rich in various fruit. 



Jer. viii : 22. Is there no balm in prison, he departed into GaHlee ; 

Gilead ; is there no physician there? is ,\n(^ leaving Nazareth, he came 

why then is not the health of the and dwelt in Capernaum, which is 

daughter of my people recovered. upon th» sea coast, in the borders of 

Matt, iv : 12. Now when Jesus Zabulon and Nephthalim : i-* That 

had heard that John was cast into it might be fulfilled which was spo- 



enemies to each other to agree together : it is a happy contention of the 
seasons, as if every one of them laid claim to the country. Grapes and 
figs are found there during ten months of the year, and other fruits all 
through the year. Besides the good temperature of the air, it is watered 
by a most excellent spring, called by the natives Capharnaum. The length 
of the plain along the shore is thirty furlongs, and its breadth twenty." 
Mr. Porter gives the length as three miles and the greatest breadth as about 
one mile. Dean Stanley ascribes to it a much greater extent ; for, after 
speaking of the tropical vegetation and climate of the western shores 
of the Lake, he says : " Tliis fertility reaches its highest point in the one 
spot on the western shore wliere the mountains suddenly receding inland, 
leave a level plain of five miles wide and six or seven miles long." 

This backward sweep of the mountains, giving to the plain the shape of 
a crescent or triangle, begins four miles north of Tiberias at Mejdel — the 
ancient Magdala, near which is the Aiti Miidawarah, or the Round 
Fountain, so named by being enclosed by a circular wall of mason-work ; 



240 THE EVANGEL. 

Rich in all shade, where every tree takes root 
And flourishes that grows in any zone, 
In happy strife each claiming this its own : 
The tropic palm, the walnut and the oak, 
The fig tree and the olive, vines that cloak 
The bareness of the rocks with hanging grace, 
Pomegranates budding in a sunny place ; 
Flowers of every hue, the ardent bloom 
Of oleanders, and the sweet perfume 



ken by Esaias the prophet, saying, to them which sat in the region and 

15 The land of Zabulon, and the shadow of death hght is sprung up, 

land of Nephthalim, by the way of Cant, iv : 8. Come with me from 

the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of Lebanon, my spouse, with me from 

the Gentiles. ^^ fhe people which Lebanon: look from the top of 

sat in darkness saw great light ; and Amana, from the top of Shenir and 

and, having completed the curve, returns to the Lake, sending out a short 
promontory into the water. At this northern extremity is Khan Minyek, 
marked by an old inn, khan or caravanserai, near a heap of ruins. Hard 
by is a fig-tree overhanging a fountain designated as Ainet-Tin=" Spring 
of the Fig-tree." A good road, straight and deep cut in the rock, is the 
passage between the plain of Gennesaret and the northern slope of the 
lake. A mile up the road is a fountain, called Ain Tabiga, larger than 
any of the former, and strong enough to turn several mills as it bursts 
from the rocks. Two miles farther on are found the massive ruins of Tell 
Hum, situated about three miles south of the point at which the Jordaa 
enters the lake. 

Five little cities were, in the time of Jesus, scattered over the space 
which extends from the village of Mejdel to Tell Hum, a distance of six 
or seven miles, viz., Magdala, Dalmanutha, Capernaum, Bethsaida and 
Chorazin, of which the first only can now be identified. Dalmanutha was 
probably near by. Chorazin, it is supposed, lay a little inland to the north. 
The site of Capernaum has been the subject of much dispute, some locat- 



FAREWELL: LAND OF GENNESARET. 241 

Of roses, lilies springing from the grass 

Whose naked glories Solomon's surpass — 

O weary, weary, weary nights and days ! 

Where now the blush that mantled at His praise ? 

At His departure all your beauties pale, 

And sadness settles over all the vale. 

Begins your sobbing, melancholy moan. 
Ye loving turtle-doves, ere He has gone : 



Hermon. . . 12 a garden enclosed saffron; calamus and cinnamon, 

is my sister, my spouse; a spring with all trees of frankincense ; myrrh 

shut up, a fountain sealed, i^ Thy and aloes, with all the chief spices : 

plants are an orchard of pomegran- i^ A fountain of gardens, a well of 

ates, with pleasant fruirs ; camphire, living waters, and streams from Leb- 

with spikenard, •■* Spikenard and anon, i^ Awake, O north -wind ; 

ing it at the southern extremity of the plain of Gennesaret, near the Round 
Fountain assumed to be the same as the Capharnaum of Josephus ; 
others, and the largest number, at the northern boundary, in the vicinity 
of the solitary Khan and Fountain of the Fig-tree, mentioned above — 
Khan Minyeh and Ain et-Tin ; while still others, among whom is Dr. 
Thomson, contend for Tell Hum three miles north of the Plain. Thom- 
son believes that Bethsaida lay on both sides of the Jordan, near its 
mouth. 

Renan remarks : " The Lake, the horizon, the shrubs, the flowers, these 
are all that remain of the little region of eight or ten miles in which Jesus 
founded His divine work. The trees have totally disappeared. In this 
country, where the vegetation was formerly so brilliant that Josephus saw 
in it a sort of miracle, the traveler now calculates a day in advance where 
he may find on the morrow a little shade for his repast. The lake has- 
become deserted. A single bark, in the most miserable condition, plows 
to-day these waves once so rich in life and joy. But the waters are still 
light and transparent. The beach, composed of rocks and pebbles, is 
16 



242 THE EVANGEL. 

Ye blue birds, that the grass-blade scarcely bow 
On which ye light, your wings are heavy now: 
Ye crested larks, who customed are to fly 
Up to heaven-gate, this morn ye nestle nigh 
His passing feet, and have no heart to rise : 
The turtles of the brook, with quick, soft eyes, 
Plead for a parting look : storks grave and staid 
Draw near for valediction unafraid : 
All gentle things are full of tender pain, 

and come, thou south ; blow upon my heart waketh : it is the voice of 

my garden, that the spices thereof my beloved that knocketh, saying, 

may flow out. Let my beloved come Open to me, my sister, my love, my 

into his garden and eat his pleas- dove, my undefiled ; for my head is 

ant fruits. Ch. v : 2, I sleep, but filled with dew, and my locks with 



almost that of a little sea, not that of a pond, like the shore of Lake Huleh. 
It is clean, neat, without mud, always beaten at the same level by the 
slight movement of the waves. Little promontories, covered with olean- 
ders, tamarind trees, and the prickly caper, complete the outline. At two 
places especially, the egress of the Jordan, and the border of the plain of 
Gennesaret, there are intoxicating parterres, where the waves die away 
amid clumps of grass and flowers. Clouds of swimming birds cover the 
lake. The horizon is sparkhng with light. The water of a celestial azure, 
deeply encased between frowning rocks, seems, when viewed from the 
summit of the mountains of Safed, to be in the bottom of a cup of gold. 
To the north, the snowy ravines of Herrnon stand out in white lines 
against the sky ; on the east, the high undulating plains of Gaulonitis and 
of Perea, completely arid, and clothed by the sun in a species of velvety 
atmosphere, form a continuous mountain range, or rather a long elevated 
terrace, which from Caesarea-Philippi trends indefinitely toward the south. 
" The heat upon the borders is now very oppressive. The lake occupies 
a depression of six hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean, 
and thus shares the torrid condition of the Dead Sea. An abundant veg- 



FAREWELL: LAND OF GENXESARET. 243 

And longing for His quick return again. 
The waves that ripple softly to the shore 
Whisper the wish, and at His feet adore ; 
They know their Lord, and His commands fulfil, 
Are as He bids tempestuous or still. 

Who scooped thy bed one hundred fathoms low 
Deep toward the centre, then did farther go 
Twice fifteen fathoms nearer the earth's heart. 



he drops of the night. Ch. ii : 10. My 12 xhe flowers appear on the earth ; 

beloved spake, and said unto me, the time of the singing of birds is 

Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come, and the voice of the turtle is 

come away. 11 For, lo, the winter heard in our land ; is The fig-tree 

is past, the rain is over and gone: putteth forth her green figs, and 



etation formerly tempered these excessive heats : it is difficult to compre- 
hend that such an oven as the whole basin of the lake now is from the 
month of May, was ever the scene of such extraordinary activity. Jose- 
phus moreover considers the country very temperate. It is Islamism, 
especially the Moslem reaction against the crusades, which has blasted like 
a sirocco of death the region favored of Jesus." 

We cannot help saying, that if the climate was temperate in the time of 
Josephus, and is now torrid, the causes referred to would seem hardly 
adequate to account for so great a difference, and we think it strange, 
therefore, that no one has thought to call attention to the plain possibility 
of great physical changes having been brought about by the agency of 
those terrific earthquakes of which, from the commencement of the Chris- 
tian era, the Jordan valley has been many times the seat, one even so 
lately as 1837. Why may we not suppose, that the effect of these has 
been to increase the depression of the lake and its shores ; and that the 
higher temperature is due partly to this change of level ; and that the 
difficulty experienced in the identification of sites is owing to topograph- 
ical modifications from the same cause ? We cannot be sure of the when 



244 THE EVANGEL. 

And there thy waters sank, and by His art, 

In the divine forgotten days of old, 

Did rim the oval of thy cup of gold 

With lofty mountains ? Who, indeed, but He, 

Thy Maker here, O Galilean Sea ! 

He on thy willing breast this morn shall float, 

Who hath no need of sail or oar or boat, 

But could as firmly walk thy waters o'er. 

As though upborne upon a marble floor. 

the vines with the tender grape of his mouth : for thy love is better 

give a good smell. Arise, my love, than wine. . . •* Draw me, we will 

my fair one, and come away. Ch. i : run after thee. ..si am black, but 

2. Let him kiss me with the kisses comely. . , ^ Look not upon me, 

and the how, but we are of the fact, that the blotting out of Sodom and 
Gomorrah was not more complete and absolute than that of the doomed 
cities of Capernaum, Chorazin and Bethsaida. If the woe be under- 
stood as pronounced against the place as well as the inhabitants, may 
not the words " thrust down to hell " (Luke x : 15), point to an engulph- 
ing by an earthquake not long afterward, in which case no trace of 
course would remain ? 

We do not know upon what grounds the Rabbis refer the origin of the 
name, the " Garden of the Prince," to the princes of Naphthali, rather 
than to Solomon, who would not, we may be sure, when in his vain search 
for happiness, he builded him houses, planted him vineyards, made him 
gardens, and orchards, and pools of water for purposes of irrigation 
(Eccl. ii : 4-6), overlook a spot so favored of nature. He may have made 
him gardens and orchards elsewhere, but the chief, we must believe, were 
here, for no where else in Palestine would the opportunities be so ample 
for the gratification of all royal tastes and desires, the hereditary outcome 
of an aesthetic and poetic temperament, in the creation and the enjoyment 
of the beautiful; and for the indulgence at the same time of that active 
curiosity which made him the most learned naturalist of his time, quaUfy- 



farewell: land of gennesaret 245 

Why still when all things beautiful are sad 
Looks snowy Hermon glittering and glad — 
That giant of the north, with forehead grand, 
And sovereign eye o'erlooking all the land? 
Why, but because, go where the Master will, 
That eye pursues Him, and is with Him still; 
Smiling and blushing at the holy sight 
Its snows ashamed before His stainless white. 



because I am black, because the of the wood, so is my beloved among 
sun hath looked upon me. Ch. ii : 3. the sons. I sat down under his sha- 
As the apple tree among the trees dow with great delight, and his fruit 



ing him to "speak of all trees, from the cedar tree of Lebanon to the 
hyssop that springeth out of the wall ; also of beasts, of fowl, of creeping 
things (reptiles), and of fishes," i Kings iv : 33. 

For making the Land of Gennesaret the scene of that divine Eclogue, 
"The Song of Songs which is Solomon's," we have the justification of 
images and allusions which plainly point to some locality of tropical 
beauty and luxuriance not far from Lebanon ; and we venture the conjec- 
ture, moreover, that the old name Chinnereth was changed to Gennesaret 
about this time, and for the reason that Solomon had converted this 
smiling and well-watered plain into a royal park and garden. 

The lake is an irregular oval, with the largest end to the north. It 
bears some resemblance to a harp, whence according to some its name, 
Chinnereth, "Lake of the Harp." Dr. Thompson makes it fourteen 
miles long and nine wide at the widest part. Josephus gives the length 
at one hundred and forty stadia and the breadth forty — a stadium being a 
little less than the eighth of a mile. Dean Stanley, after comparing the 
fertility of the shores to that of the Vale of Siddim before the destruction 
of Sodom and Gomorrah, remarks, that if the southern lake is the Sea of 
Death , the northern is the Sea of Life. It lies six hundred and fifty-two 
feet below the Mediterranean, and its depth is one hundred and sixty-five 
feet; and we have given our reasons elsewhere for thinking it may have 
been once subterranean. 



246 THE EVANGEL. 

Be comforted, who solitary mourn ! 
Not long ye pine forsaken and forlorn ; 
The darkened East shall soon your Sun restore. 
And with His presence gladden you once more. 
Behold, the Great Physician, in His palm 
Bearing miraculous all-healing balm. 
From Transjordanic Gilead shall come, 
And make His dwelling in Capernaum. 

Here in this City, beautifully set 
On the north border of Gennesaret, 
His mother and disciples, locked in sleep, 
Know not He wakes to worship, perhaps, weep. 
Land of Gennesaret ! to thee belongs 
The Canticle of Canticles, the Song of Songs. 
Behold, the Bridegroom stands without, His locks 
Wet with the dews of night, and softly knocks. 

Calling, I heard one sweetly say. 
And knew the voice of my Adored : 
*' Arise, my love, and come away. 

Thou of the fair and polished forehead ! 

was sweet to my taste. Ch. v : 10. 22 His eyes are as the eyes of doves. 
My beloved is white and ruddy, the by the rivers of waters. . . ^^ His 
chiefest among ten thousand. , . cheeks are a bed of sweet spices, as 



farewell: land of gennesaret. 247 

For lo, the winter's past, the rain 

Is o'er and gone, the flowers are springing. 
The turtle's voice is heard again, 

And all around the birds are singing. 
Green figs put forth, the vines smell sweet : 

Arise, my love, 'tis time for waking ; 
Make haste, I wait thy tardy feet. 

The shadows flee, the day is breaking." 

O happy days and nights ! O happy bride. 
With thy Beloved journeying by thy side ! 
Better than wine. He'll slake thy spirit's drouth, 
With the moist kisses of His heavenly mouth: 
Will draw, and thou wilt follow, day by day, 
With ravished footsteps where He leads the way. 
Though thou art black, with condescending grace 
He calls thee fair, and stoops to thy embrace. 
As is the apple-tree among the trees, 
So He among the sons are more than these : 
Under His shadow, thou with great delight 

sweet flowers. . . ''' His counte- my beloved is mine ; he feedeth 

nance is as Lebanon, excellent as among the lilies. Ch. viii : 8. His 

the cedars : '•' His mouth is most left hand should be under my head, 

Sweet; yea, he is altogether lovely. and his right hand should embrace 

Ch. vi : 3. I am my beloved's, and me. 



24S THE EVANGEL. 

Shalt sit, and feast thy hungry heart and sight. 
Chiefest among ten thousand, wholly sweet, 
And lovely downward to His beauteous feet ! 
He hath dove's eyes, more dewy soft than ours ; 
His cheeks are beds of spices and sweet flowers : 
His countenance is as the settino: sun 
Upon the snowy peaks of Lebanon. 
Yea, my Beloved's mine, and I am His ; 
He feeds among the lilies, pure He is : 
On the chaste pillow of His loving breast, 
I'll lay my weary head and nightly rest. 

My Shepherd is Jehovah, I 

Shall never want, He shall provide : 

In pastures green He makes me lie. 
He leads me where still waters glide. 

When I have wandered far astray. 

O'er mountains bleak and deserts wild, 

He brings me back, directs my way. 
By loving means and methods mild. 

Ps. xxiii : i. The Lord is my still waters. 3 He restoreth my soul : 

shepherd; I shall not want. 2He he leadeth me in the paths of right- 

maketh me to lie down in green eousness for his name's sake. ^Yea, 

pastures : he leadeth me beside the though I walk through the valley of 



FAREWELL: LAND OF GENNESARET. 249 

Through death's dark valley though I walk, 
I will not quail, for Thou art near: 

Thou wil'st the hours with friendly talk, 
Thy rod and staff support and cheer. 

A banquet Thou dost me appoint, 

Even in the presence of my foes : 
My head with oil Thou dost anoint, 

My cup of blessing overflows. 

Surely Thy goodness will not fail, 

Thy mercy Thou wilt ne'er withhold ; 

Through life and death they shall prevail, 
And bring me to Thy heavenly fold. 



the shadow of death, I will fear no anointest my head with oil; my cup 

evil : for thou art with me ; thy rod runneth over, e Surely goodness 

andthy staff they comfort me. ^Thou and mercy shall follow me all the 

preparest a table before me in the days of my life : and I will dwell in 

presence of mine enemies : thou the house of the Lord forever. 



XVI. 
JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 

WHETHER on foot, along the western shore. 
Crossing below the Lake the Jordan o'er, 
To join the pilgrims on the eastern side ; 
Or, taking ship, across the sea they glide 
To Gadara, 't is equal. Here of old, 
Og, king of Bashan, of enormous mould — - 
Last of the Rephaim, a giant race — 
Held sway from Jabbok up to Hermon's base, 
Slain there at Edrei in Argob, called 



Num. xxi : 21. And Israel sent people together, and went out 

messengers unto Sihon king of the against Israel into the wilderness : 

Amorites, saying, 22 Let nig pass and he came to Jahaz, and fought 

through thy land : we will not turn against Israel ; 24 And Israel smote 

into the fields, or into the vineyards ; him with the edge of the sword, and 

we will not drink of the waters of possessed his land from Arnon to 

the well, but will go along by the Jabbok, even unto the border of the 

king's highway until we pass by children of Ammon [on the east], 

thy borders. 23 And Sihon would for it was strong. 25 And Israel took 

not suffer Israel to pass through his all these cities. 

border ; but Sihon gathered all his . . ^e For Heshbon was the city of 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 25 1 

Land of the giants, all its cities walled 
And fortified, three score in number, fell 
Into the hands of conquering Israel. 

While there where stretch the upland meadows 

green 
Of GiLEAD, including all between 
The Jabbok and the Arnon, Sihon king 
Of Heshbon perished — shot at with the sling 
And bow of Israel's trained bands, that chased 
His fleeing army, and his land laid waste, 
To Dibon, Nophah, and to Medeba, 
And thus to Jordan opened up the way 
For Israel's crossing. How the mountains rang 
As the stirred caravan responsive sang ! 



Sihon, who had fought against the ered into our hands Og also, . . . 

former king of Moab, and taken all ^And we took all his cities at that 

his land out of his hand, even unto time, threescore cities ; all the re- 

Arnon. . . so We have shot at them, gion of Argob, the kingdom of Og 

Heshbon is perished even unto Di- in Bashan. ^All these cities were 

bon, and we have laid them waste fenced with high walls, gates and 

even unto Nophah, which reacheth bars ; besides unwalled towns a 

unto Medeba. ss And they turned great many. . . n For only Og king 

and went up by the way of Bashan : of Bashan remained of the remnant 

and Og the king of Bashan went of the giants ; behold, his bedstead 

out against them, he, and all his was of iron ; nine cubits was the 

people, to the battle at Edrei. Dent. length thereof ; and four cubits the 

iii : 3. So the Lord our God deliv- breadth thereof. 



252 THE EVANGEL. 

Praise the Lord, for He is good, 

O ye faithful brotherhood ! 

For His mercy, firm and sure, 
Doth from age to age endure. 

Lift to Him your hymns of laud, 

Who of gods alone is God : 
For His mercy, firm and sure. 
Doth from age to age endure. 

Tune Him thanks, with sounding cords, 
Who doth reign the Lord of Lords : 
For His mercy, firm and sure, 
Doth from age to age to endure. 

Who alone great wonders doeth, 
And creation thence ensueth : 
For His mercy, firm and sure, 
Doth from age to age endure. 



Psalm cxxxvi : I. O give thanks for his mercy endureth for ever. sQ 

unto the Lord ; for he is good : for give thanks unto the Lord of lords : 

his mercy endureth for ever. 2 Q for, etc. 4To him who alone doeth 

give thanks unto the God of gods : great wonders: for, etc. sTo him 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 253 

Who by wisdom made and bent 
Overhead the firmament : 

For His mercy, firm and sure, 

Doth from age to age endure. 

Who the earth on nothing hung, 
And in empty space it flung : 

For His mercy, firm and sure 

Doth from age to age endure. 

Who, when darkness did entomb, 
Made great lights to chase the gloom : 

For His mercy, firm and sure, 

Doth from age to age endure. 

Made the sun to rule the day, 
And the joy of Hfe convey: 

For His mercy, firm and sure. 

Doth from age to age endure. 



that bv wisdom made the heavens : etc. « The sun to rule by day : for, 

for etc. 6 To him that stretched out etc. ^The moon and stars to rule 

the earth above the waters : for. etc: by night : for, etc. i" To him that 

^To him that made great lights : for, smote Egypt in their first born : for, 



254 THE EVANGEL. 

Moon and stars to rule the night, 

With a soft and mellow light : 
For His mercy, firm and sure, 
Doth from age to age endure. 

Who smote Egypt's eldest born, 

Making th' oppressor mourn : 
For His mercy, firm and sure. 
Doth from age to age endure. 

Brought out Israel, free from harm, 
With strong hand and outstretched arm ; 
For His mercy, firm and sure, 
Doth from age to age endure. 

Who the Red sea cleft in two, 
And made Israel pass through : 

For His mercy, firm and sure. 
Doth from age to age endure. 



etc, i^And brought out Israel from divided the Red sea into parts : for, 

among them : for, etc. 12 With a etc. ^* And made Israel to pass 

strong hand, and with a stretched through the midst of it : for, etc. 

out arm : for, etc. is To him which ^^ But overthrew Pharaoh and his 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 255 

But pursuing Pharaoh, 

And his hosts did overthrow : 

For His mercy, firm and sure, 

Doth from age to age endure. 

Who His chosen people led 
Through the wilderness and fed : 

For His mercy, firm and sure. 

Doth from age to age endure. 

Many kings did smite and slay. 
Great and famous in their day : 

For His mercy, firm and sure, 

Doth from age to age endure. 

Sihon, king in Heshbon dwelling. 
Friendly words of peace repelling: 

For His mercy, firm and sure, 

Doth from age to age endure. 



host in the Red sea, for, etc. i^ Xo which smote great kings: for, etc. 
him which led his people through ^* And slew famous kings, for, etc. 
the wilderness : for, etc. 1^ To him ^^ Sihon king of the Amorites : for, 



256 



THE EVANGEL. 

Og of Argob, land of stone, 
King of mighty bulk and bone: 
For His mercy, firm and sure. 
Doth from age to age endure. 

Wrested from the Canaanite, 
Other kingdoms in sore fight : 

For His mercy, firm and sure. 

Doth from age to age endure. 

Did to Israel them deliver, 

For a heritage forever : 

For His mercy, firm and sure, 
Doth from age to age endure. 

Who, when our estate was low, 
Help remembered to bestow : 
For His mercy, firm and sure. 
Doth from age to age endure. 






JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 257 

From our enemies hath freed, 
In the hour of bitter need : 

For His mercy, firm and sure, 

Doth from age to age endure. 

Who to all flesh giveth food, 
And abundance of all good : 

For His mercy, firm and sure, 
' Doth from age to age endure. 

Let our thanks to Him be given, 
Israel's God, the God of Heaven : 

For His mercy, firm and sure. 

Doth from age to age endure. 

In groups and companies the pilgrim throng, 
With camels bearing burdens, sweep along. 
Now halting, now proceeding on their route: ^ 

redeemed us from our enemies : for, for, etc. 26 Q give thanks unto the 
etc. 25 Who giveth food to all flesh, God of heaven : for his mercy, etc. 

* Assuming that Jesus followed the usual route, it is not pretended that 
this lay through all the places hereafter mentioned — Mahanaim, Penuel, 
Bethbarah, Jabesh Gilead, Ramoth Gilead, the fords of Jericho, the land 
and mountains of Moab — but since none of these could have been far 
distant, and one and all had connection with some of the most interesting 
events recorded in the Old Testament, we have ventured to use and ex- 



258 THE EYAINGEL. 

Associations sacred and devout, 

Linked with the scenes that they are passing 
through, 

Historic memories of things most true, 

God's deahngs with their fathers waken dread, 

While shines the paschal moon i £;i overhead. 

Up the defile, where Jabbok^ in its course 
Maintains victorious wrestle with the force 
Of hindering mountains, stubborn to proceed, 
Throwing or thrown, accelerating speed 
To join the flying Jordan, one of yore — 

Gen. xxxii : i. And Jacob went met him. 2i\nd when Jacob saw 
on his way, and the angels of God them, he said, This is God's host : 

tend the opportunity thus afforded, for introducing, episodically, a consid- 
erable portion of the history of the Jewish people ; and with reason, for 
the I AM before Abraham (John viii : 58) was in fact the personahty of 
every Divine Appearance — that Angel of Jehovah with whom Jacob strug- 
gled and Joshua spake. The Old Testament precedes the New, and ex- 
plains it. The epical " In medias res " has exemplification in the Gospels. 
The itinerary necessitates the awkwardness of reading the history back- 
ward and by piecemeal, instead of connectedly and in chronological order. 
The mountains of Eastern Palestine, rising from the valley of the Jor- 
dan to the height of two or three thousand feet, form there a wide table- 
land of undulating downs, clothed with rich grass throughout, and in the 
northern parts with magnificent forests of sycamore, beech, terebinth, 
ilex (the ever-green oak), and enormous fig-trees. These downs are bro- 
ken by deep defiles, through which the three rivers of the Hieromax, the 
Jabbok and the Arnon fall into the Jordan. The primary reference of 

* Jabbok, i. e. wrestling. 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 259 

Who with his staff had twenty years before 
Passed over this same Jordan, having nought, 
Fleeing a brother's vengeance — once more sought 
His native Canaan with o'erloaded hands. 
The lonely fugitive become two bands : 
As cross the desert, hastening his return 
Back from Mesopotamian sojourn, 
Angels of God him met, and comforted 
Beholding them, " This is God's host," he said, 
And so the place he Mahanaim named, 



and he called the name of that place with him, and the flocks, and herds 

Mahanaim [i. e. "two hosts or and the camels, into two bands; 

camps"], ^And Jacob sent mes- And said, If Esau come to the one 

sengers before him to Esau his bro- company, and smite it, then the 

ther unto the land of Seir, the other company which is left shall 

country of Edom. , . ''Then Jacob escape. ^And Jacob said, O God 

was greatly afraid and distressed ; of my father Abraham, and God of 

and he divided the people that was my father Isaac, . . if* I am not 



Deut. xxxii : 13, 14, " The Lord hath made thee to ride in high places," 
would seem to be to Eastern Palestine rather than Western, which it far 
surpasses in fertilty and beauty. To the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and 
the half-tribe of Manasseh was assigned the territory wrested from Sihon, 
and Og, because " they had a very great multitude of cattle ;" and desired 
it, "that they might build cities [villages of tonts] for their httle ones, and 
for their folds of sheep," Num. xxxii : i, 4, 16, 24, 26. Joshua, after the 
conquest of Western Palestine, bade them not to return to their " houses," 
but their "tents." They never entirely lost their pastoral and nomadic 
character. In the song of Deborah complaint is made, " Why abodest 
thou [Reuben] among the sheepfolds to hear the bleatings of the flocks ? 
Gilead abode [in tents] beyond Jordan," Judges v: 16, 17. Jephthah was 



26o THE EVANGEL. 

Where rose in after time a city famed. 
There ruled as king o'er Israel, Ishbosheth, 
After his royal sire's defeat and death. 
There David, flying as on wings of dove. 
Found rest and refuge, when the tempest drove, 



worthy of the least of all thy mer- and over all Israel, i"- He was forty 

cies ; . . for with my staff I passed years old when he began to reign 

over this Jordan ; and now I am over Israel, and reigned two years, 

become two bands. ^ Deliver me, But the house of Judah followed 

I pray thee, from the hand of my David. Ch. xvii : 24. Then David 

brother, Esau. came to Mahanaim. And Absalom 

2 Sam. ii : 8. But Abner the son passed over Jordan, he and all the 

of Ner, captain of Saul's host, took men of Israel with him. Ps. Iv : 6. 

Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, and And I said, Oh that I had wings 

brought him over to Mahanaim ; like a dove, for then would I fly 

and made him king over Gilead, . . away, and be at rest. ^ I would has- 



of the tribe of Gad. The Gadites who joined the outlawed David, had, 
it is said, i Chron. vi : 8, 15, "faces like the faces of lions, and were as 
swift as roes [gazelles] upon the mountains." This wildness of aspect 
and fleetness of foot characterized Elijah who was a Gadite ; and who, 
when the hand of the Lord was upon him, outran the chariot of Ahab. 

Eastern Palestine, as the frontier land, was the first conquered and the 
first lost. In the beginning, the unconquered tribe of Ammon bordered 
it on the east, where the highlands melt away into the vast plain of the 
Hauran and the Syrian desert ; and in the time of Jephthah they had 
made themselves temporarily masters of it. The roving Midianites 
(Arabs), coming up here from the south (united with the Amalekites and 
children of the east), swarmed over into Western Palestine in the time of 
Gideon. Necessarily, from its exposed and midway position, it bore the 
brunt of all the incursions of the Syrians of Damascus, when Ramoth 
Gilead became the scene of so many sieges and battles ; as well as of the 
Assyrians and Babylonians. 

Separated by the great natural moat of the Jordan, the dwellers on this 
side were always distinct from those on the other side of the river. 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 261 

The windy storm of Absalom's revolt : 
There mourned him, when he perished for his fault — 
Caught in the thick boughs of a neighboring oak — 
And with a harp strung to his sorrows, woke 
Immortal echoes in the things around — 
Finding resemblances of sight and sound 
To the deep longings and the wild unrest, 
The tossing and the terror of his breast — 



^en my escape from the windy storm took three darts in his hands, and 

and tempest. 2 Sam. xviii : 9. And thrust them through the heart of 

Absalom rode upon a mule, and the Absalom, while he was yet alive 

mule went under the thick boughs in the midst of the oak. . . . 

of a great oak, and his head caught ^3 And the king was much moved, 

hold of the oak, and he was taken up and went up to the chambers 

between the heaven and the earth, over the gate, and wept ; and as 

and the mule that was under him he went, thus he said, Oh my son 

went away. . . i^ And he [Joab] Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, 



"Beyond Jordan," therefore called Peraea [from 7rcpaia = " beyond," 
i. e. " the land beyond," a sea, a river, etc.], was in a sense outside of the 
land of Israel while forming a part of it ; and so in troublous times served 
as a place of refuge, or of retirement — to Ishbosheth, to David, to Eli- 
jah, to our Lord Himself, and to the first Christians, who, heeding the 
prophetic warning (Luke xxi : 20) fled, when they saw Jerusalem com- 
passed with armies, to the Transjordanic mountains, Pella, in particular. 

From the summits of these are obtained through the wide openings in 
the western hills opposite, extensive glimpses into the heart of the country. 
" From a point above the Dead Sea, Bethlehem and Jerusalem can both 
be seen in the same prospect. From the castles of Rubad, north of the 
Jabbok, are distinctly visible Lebanon, the Sea of Galilee, Esdraelon in its 
full extent, Carmel, the Mediterranean, and the whole range of Judah 
and Ephraim." Over these hills Israel and Judah were carried away 



262 THE EVANGEL. 

Beheld with panting sides and piteous looks 
The hart descending to the water brooks ; 
Down rocky steeps heard Jordan's waters pour^ 
Deep call to deep, and waves and billows roar. 

Here is Peniel, memorable place, 
Where Jacob saw his Maker face to face, 
And strove and wrestled with Him as a man 
All through the night until the day began, 



would God I had died for thee, O calleth unto deep at the noise of thy 

Absalom, my son, my son ! Ps. waterspouts : all thy waves and thy 

xlii : I. As the hart panteth after billows are gone over me. 

the water brooks, so panteth my Gen. xxxii : 22. And he [Jacob] rose 

soul after thee, O God. ^My soul up that night and took his two wives, 

thirstethfor God, for the living God: and his two women servants, and 

when shall I come and appear be- his eleven sons, and passed over the 

fore God? . . . eQ my God, my ford Jabbok [i.e. "wrestling"] . . 

soul is cast down within me : there- 24 And Jacob was left alone; and 

fore will I remember thee from the there wrestled a man with him imtil 

land of Jordan, and of the Hermon- the breaking of day. 25 And when 

ites, from the hill Mizar. "Deep he saw that he prevailed not against 



captive. It v/as here that they took their last farewell look ; and here their 
children, returning from long exile, first caught sight of their restored 
heritage, the land of their fathers. As, however, all did not come back, 
only a part, their interpretation of prophecy led them to expect the return 
of the remainder of Israel ; and so with eyes directed to the eastern hills, 
they watched for the appearing of the herald who should announce the 
approach of the marching multitude gathered from all the countries of 
eastern Asia where they had been scattered, construing in this sense the 
words of Isaiah, " How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him 
that bringeth good tidings ! " 



journey: beyond THE JORDAN. 



263 



Hard by the ford of Jabbok struggling still — 

With conquering persistency of will, 

And single agony of mighty prayer 

Holding Him fast till He should bless him there ; 

And so prevailed, and got to him a name 

Second to none in all the rolls of fame — 

Jacob no more, but Israel, Prince of God. 

Draw near, his children ! Come with feet unshod. 
The ground is holy, honorable the place, 
To-day, like Jacob, ye may see '' God's Face :" 
The secret of His name, O would ye know? 
'Tis JESUS, since He came to dwell below. 

As to the brave returning from the wars 
There's nothing half so honorable as scars, 



him, he touched his thigh ; and the 
hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of 
joint, as he wrestled with him. -^And 
he said. Let me go, for the day 
breaketh. And he said, I will not 
let thee go, except thou bless me. 
2T And he said unto him, What is 
thy name? And he said, Jacob. 
8 8 And he said. Thy name shall 
be called no more Jacob, but Israel 
I. e. "A prince of God " ] : for as 



a prince thou hast power with God 
and with men, and hast prevailed. 
29 And Jacob asked him, and said, 
Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. 
And he said. Wherefore is it that 
thou dost ask after my name ? And 
he blessed him there, ^o And Jacob 
called the name of the place Peniel 
[/. e. "The face of God "J : for I 
have seen God face to face, and my 
life is preserved. ^i And as he 



264 



THE EVANGEL. 



So Jacob halt from dislocated bone 
Mounted the higher and leaped into a throne. 
Admiring sons spontaneous honors pay, 
Sinew that shrank not eating to this day.^ 



Near where the Jabbok's foaming torrent calls 
From heights precipitous, until it falls 
Into the Jordan, is an ancient Ford, 
Bethbarah, *' House of Passage." Hither poured 
The robber host of Midian, with rout, 
Promiscuous slaughter, battle din and shout, 
And flash and glare of torches in the night, 
Blowing of trumpets, headlong backward flight, 



passed over Penuel the sun rose 
upon him, and he halted upon his 
thigh. 33 Therefore the children of 
Israel eat not of the sinew which , 
shrank, unto this day. 

Judges vi : i. And the children of 
Israel did evil in the sight of the 
Lord ; and the Lord delivered them 
into the hands of the Midianites 
seven years. . . ^2 And the angel of 



the Lord appeared unto Gideon 
the son of Joash, and said unto 
him : The Lord is with thee : . , . 
!■* Thou shalt save Israel from the 
hands of the Midianites. ... 25 And 
the Lord said unto him. Throw 
down the altar of Baal that thy fath- 
ers hath, and cut down the grove 
that is by it. . . . ^o And the men of 
the city said to Joash, Bring out 



* The custom reaches to the present time. Modern Jews do not ear 
the hind-quarter of animals. 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 



265 



And panic terror : dire their present need ; 

If Baal can give help, '* Let Baal plead/' 

And save his worshipers : They ran, cried, fled. 

Seeking the nearest pass that hither led : — 

Jerubbaal, fast following behind, 

Faint but pursuing, eager as the wind, 

With his three hundred sweeping cross the Ford, 

Shouting the battle-cry, *' Jehovah's sword 

And sword of Gideon," unsheathed to break 

The rod of the oppressor, Oreb make 

And Zeeb, Zebah and Zalmunna, all. 

Examples of the fate that shall befall 

God's foes, wdio, like these Midian princes, wag 



thy son that he may die. . . ^^ And 
Joash said. Will jj^^ plead for Baal ? 
. . if he be a god let him plead for 
himself. . . . ^- Therefore on that 
day he called him Jerubbaal [/. e. 
"Let Baal plead "J. ss Then all the 
Midianites and the Amalekites and 
the children of the east were gath- 
ered together, and went over and 
pitched in the valley of Jezreel [Es- 
draelon]. Ch. vii : 8. Then Jerub- 
baal, who is Gideon, divided the 
three hundred men into three com- 
panies, and he put a trumpet in 
'every man's hand, with empty pitch- 
ers and lamps [firebrands or torch- 



es] with the pitchers. . . . '^ Ana 
they came unto the outside of the 
camp in the beginning of the mid- 
dle watch : 20 And they blew the 
trumpets and broke the pitchers, 
and held the lamps in their left 
hands and the trumpets in their 
right hands to blow withal ; and 
they cried, The sword of the Lord 
and of Gideon. 21 And they stood 
every man in his place round about 
the camp : and all the host ran, and 
and cried and fled. ... 22 And the 
Lord set every man's sword against 
his fellow. Ps. Ixxxiii : 11. Make 
their nobles like Oreb, and like 



266 



THE EVANGEL. 



Their tongues of insolence, and loudly brag 
'' We'll take God's pastures in possession : " He 
Shall make them like a wheel : their flight shall be 

Whirling and swift : behold them wildly driven, 
Scattered as stubble by the winds of heaven ; 
Chased, as when chasing flame and storm conspire 
To burn a wood, the mountains set on fire. 

When, hungry and exhausted, Gideon came 
To Succoth, to Penuel, O the shame ! 
These graceless cities both refuse him bread, 
Unnatural brethren, gave him mocks instead: 
" Are Zebah and Zalmunna captured yet? 
Why should we give you bread? " No idle threat 
Was that he made, that he their flesh would tear 



Zeeb : yea, and their princes as 
Zebah, and as Zalmunna: 12 w^o 
said, Let us take to ourselves the 
houses [pastures] of God in pos- 
session. 1-' O my God, make them 
like a wheel ; as the stubble before 
the wind, i-* As the fire burneth a 
wood, and as a flame setteth the 
mountain on fire. 

Judges viii : 4, And Gideon came 
to Jordan, and crossed over, he, 
and the three hundred men that 

were with him, faint, yet pursuing. 

And he said unto the men of Suc- 



coth, Give, 1 pray you, loaves of 
bread unto the people that follow 
me. "And the princes of Succoth 
said, Are Zebah and Zalmunna now 
in thine hand that we should give 
bread unto thine army ? "And Gid« 
eon said. Therefore when the Lord 
hath delivered them into mine hand, 
then I will tear your flesh with the 
thorns of the wilderness and the 
briars, s And he went up thence to 
Penuel ; and the men of Penuel 
answered him as the men of Suc- 
coth. 9 And he said, When I come 



JOURNEY: BEYOND TPIE JORDAN. 267 

With thorns and briars on returning there, 
And raze the tower erected in the place 
Where Jacob had the Vision of God's Face. 

The foe discomfited, in Karkor found, 
He Zebah and Zalmunna brought back bound, 
And spared them not, because they to his own 
Brethren at Tabor had not mercy shown. 
He Succoth punished, and Penuel's tower 
Razed to the ground in all its pride of power. 

At the beginning, when he Midian drave. 
To Ephraim the easy task he gave 
To close the passes to the Jordan. Two 
Chiefs of the flying hosts they caught, and slew — 
Oreb and Zeeb— mid the confused sound 

again in peace, I will break down Zebah and Zalmunna, What man- 

the tower. ... 12 And when Zebah ner of men were they whom ye 

and Zalmunna fled, he pursued after slew at Tabor? And they answered, 

them, and took these two kings of As thou art so were they; each one 

Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and resembled the children of a king, 

discomfited all the host in Karkor. i9 And he said, They were rny 

... 15 And he came unto Succoth, brethren, even the sons of my 

. . 16 And took the elders of the mother: as the Lord hveth, if ye 

city, and with briars and thorns of had saved them alive, I would not 

the wilderness taught the men of slay you. ... 21 And Gideon rose 

Succoth. " And he beat down the and slew them. . .. 2^ And Gideon 

tower of Penuel, and slew the men sent messengers throughout all 

of the city, li^ Then he said unto Mount Ephraim, saying, Come 



268 



THE EVANGE L. 



And noise of battle roaring all around, 
With garments of the warrior rolled in blood 
Poured at the rock of Oreb in a flood ; 
And at the wine-press too of Zeeb red 
With an unusual purple justly shed. 

Now unto us a Child is born, a Son 
Is given, the government shall be upon 
His shoulder, and His name of laud 
Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, 
The Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace : — 
He comes that war and violence may cease. 



down against the Midianites, and 
take before them the waters unto 
Bethbarah and Jordan. Then all 
the men of Ephraim gathered 
themselves, and took the waters 
unto Bethbarah and Jordan. 2.' And 
they took two princes of the Mid- 
ianites, Oreb and Zeeb ["the Ra- 
ven " and " the Wolf""] ; and they 
slew Oreb upon the rock Oreb, and 
Zeeb they slew at the wine-press of 
Zeeb, and pursued Midian, and 
brought the heads of Oreb and 
Zeeb to Gideon on the other side of 
the Jordan. Ch. viii : i. And said 
to him, Why hast thou served 
us thus, that thou calledst us not 
when thou wentest to fight with the 
Midianites. . . . ■'''And he said unto 



them, God hath delivered into your 
hands the princes of Midian, Oreb 
and Zeeb : and what was I able to 
do in comparison of you? Then 
their anger was abated toward him, 
when he said that. 

[Is. ix : 4. For thou hast broken 
the rod of the oppressor, as in the 
days of Midian. ^ For every battle 
of the warrior is with confused 
noise, and garments rolled in blood. 
6 For unto us a child is born, unto 
us a son is given, and the govern- 
ment shall be upon his shoulder : 
and his name shall be called Won- 
derful, Counsellor, The mighty God, 
The Everlasting Father, The Prince 
of Peace.] 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 269 

Jesus of Nazareth Jehovah is; 
All power in heaven and earth by right is His. 
Discern your Lord ! with awe before Him kneel ; 
But pay no homage that you do not feel ! 

The power of Midian was thenceforth dead, 
So that no more it lifted up its head ; 
And in th' enjoyment of that great success, 
The land through forty years had quietness. 
So now once more th' inhabitants appear, 
From dens and caves^ where they had hid for fear ; 



Judges viii : 28. Thus was Mid- in the days of Gideon, 
ian subdued, so that they hfted Judges vi : 2. Because of the 

up their heads no more. And the Midianites, the children of Israel 

country was in quietness forty years made them dens which are in the 

* Geologically, all Palestine, from Hermon on the north to Hebron on the 
south, consists of cavernous limestone, being essentially the same forma- 
tion as that in which the Mammoth Cave and other caves in Kentucky 
occur, differing only in not being stalactitic. It is distinguishable into 
two groups of strata. The upper group is chalky and more easily cut 
than the lower; is rounded into hills, disposed into terraces, and spread 
out into plains. It abounds in caves. The upper bed of the lower group 
contains caves likewise ; but the bed below this, underlying the whole 
country and extending far beyond its borders, east, south and north, is 
altogether different, being very hard and compact, not smooth and swel- 
ling like the other, but pointed, jagged and abrupt, torn and split asunder 
as by earthquakes, whereby huge perpendicular fissures are formed, 
frightful chasms, in some cases as much as a thousand feet deep by thirty 
or forty feet wide. The deep wadies or ravines which run down from 
Jerusalem to the Jordan and the Dead Sea, cut through these strata, and 
afford a fine opportunity for observing them. 



2/0 THE EVANGEL. 

Again they sow their desolated fields, 

And reap the increase that their labor yields, 

mountains, and caves, and strong- children of the east ; -^And des- 

holds. -And so it was, when Israel troyed the increase of the earth, and 

had sown that the Midianites came left no sustenance for Israel, neither 

up, and the Amalekites, and the sheep nor ox nor ass. = For they 

No wonder in speaking of a land thus rent and riddled, so to speak, 
throughout, allusions should be frequent to clefts and cavities, under all 
the names of "pits," "holes," "dens," "caves," "strong holds," 
"munitions of rocks," "tombs," and "sepulchres;" with mention of 
particular caves, the cave of Lot at Zoar, Gen. xix : 30; the sepulchral 
cave of Macpelah, Gen. xxiii : 19 ; the cave of Makkedah in which the 
five kings of the Amorites took refuge, Josh, x : 16; the cleft of the cliff 
Etam into which Samson lowered himself, Judges xv : 8 ; the cave of Adul- 
1am in which David lived with his followers ; also of Maon, i Sam. xxii : 
i; xxiii: 25; xxiv : 3; the cave of Saul at Engedi ; the cave in which 
Obadiah hid fifty prophets of the Lord, i Kings xviii : 4, 13 ; the grave of 
Lazarus, which was a " cave, and a stone lay upon it," John xi : 38 ; the 
" new sepulchre hewn in the rock, wherein was never man yet laid," that 
received the body of our Lord, John xix : 41 ; the sepulchral caves of the 
Gadarene demoniacs, Mark v : 3, etc. 

While some of the caves were natural and some artificial, many more 
were partly one and partly the other. " Because of the Midianites," it is 
said, " the children of Israel made them dens which are in the mountains, and 
strongholds," Judges vi : 2. In like manner, in the time of Saul, because 
of the Philistines, we are told, " When the men of Israel savv that they 
were in a strait, they hid themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, 
and in high places, and in pits," i Sam. xiii : 6. 

But while "cave-life" in the case of the Israelites was exceptional 
and forced, to their predecessors it was probably voluntary and usual. 
The Horites, who were the aboriginal inhabitants of Edom, were no 
doubt, as their name implies, Troglodytes [Tpwy/lof5Dr7/r=from rp(jy/L7/= 
" a cave," and 6vo= " to enter"] or, dwellers in caves. And the Edo- 
mites, "who dwelt in their stead," Deut. ii : 12, would seem to have 
adopted their mode of life, being described as "dwelling in the clefts of 
the rocks," and " making their nests in the cliffs as high as the eagles " 
(Jer. xlix : 16; Obad. i : 3, 4). In Job (Ch. xxx ; 5, 6) there is a contemp- 
tuous reference to Troglodvtes as a degraded class who " were driven forth 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 2/1 

Unspoiled by robber hordes, who left, alas ! 
Nothing for man, nor sheep, nor ox, nor ass, 

came up with their cattle and their they and their camels were without 
tents, and they came as grass- number, 
hoppers for multitude ; for both 

from among men ... to dwell in cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the 
earth, and in the rocks;" and the applicableness of the language to this 
locahty, lends plausible support to the supposition, that Uz, the country 
in which Job lived, was contiguous to Idumea. Everywhere in the moun- 
tains and glens of Edom we meet with caves and grottoes hewn out of the 
soft sandstone rock, having closets and recesses fitting them for dwellings. 
Those at Petra are well known. A meaner class of dwellings may have 
been pits or holes. 

Some of the most remarkable caverns in Palestine are found at Eleu- 
theropolis, now Beit Jibrin, twenty-five miles from Jerusalem. They exist 
in clusters, cut in the soft limestone hills, and in such numbers as to form 
subterranean villages. The sides of the valley of Jehosaphat are studded 
with caves, many of which are inhabited by Arab families. Josephus 
relates that after the capture of Jerusalem, Simon and many other Jews 
sought to hide themselves in the caverns under the city; and that in 
these were found much treasure, and dead bodies in great numbers. The 
same author describes certain robber caves in Gahlee. Travelers speak 
of a fortified cavern near Mejdel (Magdala) called Pigeon's Castle, capa- 
ble of holding six hundred men. Eastern Palestine is like the Western : 
"The country of the Gadaranes " remains true to its ancient character. 
The inhabitants of Urn Keis (Gadara) are all Troglodytes, "dwellers 
in tombs," hardly less fierce and dangerous than the maniacs of old. 
Hauran (Auranitis) signifies "land of holes." According to Josephus, the 
robber inhabitants of Trachonitis lived in large caverns. Strabo describes 
one large enough to contain four thousand persons. 

The life of a people is necessarily conformed to their physical surround- 
ings ; and so history to be true must be true to topography. While it may 
be no better than a pretty fancy, that the mountain is matrix to the mist, 
and the mimicry of terrestrial objects, which we admire in the floating 
vapors above us, instead of being casual, is caused by the facility with 
which 

" The cloud can stoop from heaven and take the shape 
With fold to fold of mountain and of caoe " 



2/2 THE EVANGEL. 

When they with camels without number came, 
Consuming sustenance of every name. 



Ah ! brittle vows, soon broken and forgot : 
A'^ain the ancrer of the Lord was hot 
Against backsliding guilty Israel, 
Who never long continued to do well — 
Unfixed, unstable, the perfidious lapse 
Of shifting sand, a treacherous perhaps : 
The sun beholding when it shined, the moon 
Walking in brightness, they to worship soon 
Were secretly enticed — contemning God's com- 
mand — 
Kissed with the mouth clandestinely the hand, 

Judges X : 6. And the children of ren of Ammon, and the gods of the 

Israel did evil again in the sight of Philistines, and forsook the Lord, 

the Lord, and served Baalim, and and served not him. [Job xxxi : 26. 

Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, If I beheld the sun when it shined, 

and the gods of Sidon, and the gods or the moon walking in brightness, 

of Moab, and the gods of the child- 27 And my heart hath been secretly 

yet of the moulding power of physical geography in determining the 
national character and life there can be no doubt. And not only does this 
law hold good respecting the Jewish people as a whole, but also as ap- 
plied to the tribal divisions. Circumstances of soil, situation and neigh- 
borhood diversified the national type, giving not only a distinctive char- 
acter to the inhabitants of the different districts, but of particular localities. 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 273. 

Or offered open worship : altars reared 
To Baal and to Ashtoreth ; served, feared 
The gods of Syria, and many more, 
Devils as deities preferring to adore — 
Th' abomination of the Moabites, 
Th' abomination of the Ammonites, 
Moloch and Chemosh, Cruelty and Lust, 
Fierceness and foulness, horror and disgust — 
With homicidal rites, and rites obscene, 
Hateful, unutterable, abhorred, unclean. 

Sunk in these rank idolatries, what next ? 
Sold to the Ammonites, oppressed and vext 
Through eighteen years, these, on the farther side 
Of Jordan, dwellers in all Gilead, cried 
Beneath the weight of misery intense 
Unto Jehovah for deliverance : 



enticed, or my mouth hath kissed and oppressed eighteen years all 

my hand :• 28 This also were an ini- the children of Israel that were on 

quity to be punished by the judge : the other side Jordan in the land ol 

for I should have denied the God the Amorites, which is in Gilead. 

that is above.] ''And the an- ^ Moreover the children of Ammon 

ger of the Lord was hot against passed over Jordan to fight also 

Israel, and he sold them into the against Judah, and against Benja- 

hands of the Philistines, and into min, and against the house of Eph- 

the hands of the children of Am- raim ; so that Israel was sore dis- 

mon. 8And that year they vexed tressed. ... is And the children ol 



274 



THE EVANGEL 



And, though His grace had been so much abused, 
Help and dehverance were not refused. 

God works by any instrument He wills : 
By good men and by bad His ends fulfils: 
Adapts His means, directs them and controls, 
But does not touch the liberty of souls. 
If He a nation purposes to save, 
He delegates the duty to the brave : 
Their martial skill and valor He may bless, 
But disapprove their character no less. 
Th' eternal right and the eternal wrong 
Of human acts belong where they belong. 



Israel cried unto the Lord, and said, 
We have sinned : do thou unto us 
whatsoever seemeth good unto thee ; 
dehver us only, we pray thee, this 
day. -16 And they put away the 
strange gods from among them, and 
served the Lord : and his soul was 
grieved for the misery of Israel. 
1" Then the children of Ammon were 
gathered together, and encamped 
in Gilead. And the children of Is- 
rael gathered themselves together, 
and encamped in Mizpeh. 

Ch. xi : I. Now Jephthah the 
Gileadite, was a mighty man of 
valour, and he was the son of an 



harlot : and Gilead begat Jephthah. 
2 And Gilead's wife bare him sons ; 
and his wife's sons grew up, and 
they thrust out Jephthah. . . ^ Then 
Jephthah fled from his brethren, 
and dwelt in the land of Tob : and 
there were gathered vain men to 
Jephthah, and went out with him- 
[i Sam. xxii : 2. And everyone that 
was in distress, and every one that 
was in debt, and everyone that was 
discontented, gathered themselves 
unto David, and he became captain 
over them.] . . . •''And it was so, 
that when the children of Ammon 
made war against Israel, the elders 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 2/5 

^ Jephthah, by fierce fraternal hate and scorn 
Thrust out because of unchaste mother born, 
Fled to the land of Tob near Amnion's line, 
The far frontier of Eastern Palestine, 
And banded with vain men — who with him went, 
Impelled by debt, distress or discontent — 
Across the borders he, by many a raid. 
Spoiling the spoiler, just reprisals made : 

of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out unto Jephthah, Come, and be our 
of the land of Tob : ^ And they said captain, that we may fight with the 

* As Jephthah, according to the received Chronologies, lived at the time 
of the Trojan war, many have conjectured, with a show of reason, that 
the tragic story here related of the sacrifice of his daughter, is the source 
from which was borrowed the classic fable of Iphigenia, the daughter of 
Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, devoted in like manner to death by a 
father's vow. The resemblance extends even to names ; for it needs only 
a sHght phonetic modification to make Iphi-genia stand for " Jephthah's 
daughter.'' Buchanan in his Latin drama, "Jephthes" gives the name 
of " Iphis " to the daughter. 

It is instructive to observe, how absolutely, here as elsewhere, the 
sacred narrative authenticates itself. Everything is inimitably real. It is 
impossible to doubt that all happened exactly as stated. Shocking as is 
the catastrophe, it is natural in its un naturalness. It chimes with the 
epoch. Jephthah was an Israelite, but he lived in an evil time — a time 
of anarchy and ignorance when men left to themselves, without instruc- 
tion and guidance, "did that which was right in their own eyes ;" and in 
an evil neighborhood, himself engaged for many years in carrying on a 
border warfare with idolatrous Amnion — far removed from tabernacle 
teaching and tabernacle worship, a constant spectator of hateful rites 
paid to Moloch — 

"horrid king, besmeared with blood 
Of human sacrifices and parent's tears " — 
grown, alas ! too familiar. 



276 THE EVANGEL. 

Because success audacious forays crowned 
Became for valor and emprise renowned . 

And so when Gilead, rising in revolt 
Against the Ammonites, dared not assault, 
Having no leader, they to Jephthah went, 
And all the elders urged him to consent 

children of Amnion. . . . ^And i" And the elders said unto Jeph- 

Jephthah said unto the elders of thah, The Lord be witness between' 

Gilead, If ye bring me home again us, if we do not so according to- 

to fight against the children of Am- thy words. ^Then Jephthah went 

mon, and the Lord deliver them be- with the elders of Gilead, and the 

fore me, shall I be your head? people made him head and captain 

"Evil communications corrupt good manners." Notwithstanding, 
human sacrifice was expressly forbidden by the law of Moses, under the 
penalty of death which was to be sternly enforced in every case [Lev. 
xviii : 21 ; xx: 2-5], the children of Israel, we are told, " mingled among 
the heathen and learned their works," . . and sacrificed their sons and 
daughters unto devils and shed innocent blood, . . . and the land was 
polluted with blood," Ps. cvi : 35-38. Jephthah therefore was not the 
first offender, neither was he the last; for long afterwards, they "built 
the high places of Baal which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to 
cause their sons and daughters to pass through the fire unto Moloch, 
which [said the Lord] I commanded them not, neither came it into my 
mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Israel to sin," Jer. 
xxxii: 35. 

But, it may be asked, was not Abraham " commanded " to offer up his 
son Isaac? Nay: rightly understood, God commanded him not, neither 
came it into his mind. If the language was mandatory in form, in mean- 
ing it was only a tentative Wilt thou? as appears from the sequel when 
the seeming command was changed into a prohibition. Abraham did 
not distrust the divine faithfulness in the midst of adverse seemings, 
accounting that God was able to raise up even from the dead, and restore 
his son even if he slew him. Like Job, who said, " though He slay me 



journey: beyond THE JORDAN. 2/7 

Captain to be o'er Israel, encamped 

In MiZPEH, " Heap of Witness " (place enstamped 

With sacred interest, as the solemn scene 

Of that old covenant of peace between 

Jacob and Laban), " Tower of Witness " now 

Of a new covenant and later vow, 

That fighting for them, they should make him head 

O'er all th' inhabitants of Gilead : 



over them : and he utiered all his 23 Howbeit the king of the children 

words before the Lord in Mizpeh. of Ammon hearkened not unto the 

12 And he sent messengers unto the words of Jephthah which he sent 

icing of the children of Ammon. . . "him. . . . 3o And Jephthah vowed 



yet will I trust in Him," he still knew God to be loving and good ; 
whereas the worshipers of Moloch were moved by fear, as towards a 
being diabolic, malignant, and cruel, to whom nothing was so acceptable 
.as the blood of murdered offspring offered in sacrifice. 

Jephthah was a hero of the Achillean type. His wrath was cruel. 
With nobleness there was much savagery. He had faith which served for 
inspiration ; and to this he added valor, but not knowledge, nor temper- 
ance, nor patience, nor brotherly kindness, nor charity. His faith is 
commended because it is commendable, but there the commendation 
stops. There is no wholesale approval. Whether he was a good man or 
not is left to inference. That he put his daughter to death is certain. 
Undoubtedly it was a great crime, and an abomination in God's sight, 
iDUt we pity almost as much as we blame. It is one of those cases where 
the actor, we feel, is not so bad as the act. He did it in his blindness. 
We blush for ourselves as well as for him ; for in us also are the germs of 
all possible fanaticisms. 

Unhappily his is not the only murder that has been committed in the 
name of religion — Saul of Tarsus for example before and John Calvin 
after his conversion were guilty of the like ; and both thought that they 
•were doing God's service therein. There is hardly any crime but what 



2/8 THE EVANGEL. 

And still another, rashly, wildly made 

Detestable, forbidden to be paid, 

A vow to offer sacrifice and burn 

What first came out to meet him at return — • 

Should Ammon be defeated at his hands. 

Was he so ignorant of God's commands? 



a vow unto the Lord, and said, If cometh forth of the doors of my 

thou shalt without fail deUver the house to meet me, when I return ia 

children of Ammon into my hands, peace from the children of Ammon,, 

31 Then it shall be, that whatsoever shall surely be the Lord's, and I 



there is some devil's logic to justify it, specious enough, it would seem 
to deceive the very elect. The internal forces which go to make up a 
character remarkable for decision are apt to be volcanic and only par- 
tially under control, whence it happens that men born to dominate over 
others by the strength of their passions and the energy of their will are 
in many things the slaves of themselves. None are more likely in the 
end to play the madman or the fool than great conquerors. Jephthah's 
strength, and his weakness too, lay, we have reason to believe, in an 
invincible toughness and obstinacy of nature, which made a backward 
step impossible. It was probably this more than any special tenderness of 
conscience concerning the sanctity of an oath which dictated the words, 
" I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back." 

That he suffered was inevitable. The struggle it cost him to give up 
his daughter must have been a fearful one, so much so, indeed, that we 
find it easy to believe that he never recovered from the superhuman strain. 
He judged Israel six years and died; most likely of a broken heart. It 
is a wonder that he lived so long. For however the proud and self-willed 
egotist may have succeeded for the moment in triumphing over the 
instincts of nature and the pleadings of affection for a daughter so worthy 
of his love, we may be sure that there soon followed an immedicable 
remorse, the terrors and troubles of a sick soul that nothing could drive 
away, a horror of darkness coming "out of the bottoms of inevitable 
hell." Like Orestes the brother of Iphigenia, described by the powerful 
pens of .^schylus and Euripides, who had no sooner slain his mother 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 279 

By heathenish sojourn so sottish grown, 
As to confound their worship with his own ? 

Howe'er mistaken, he had faith no doubt, 
If superstitious honestly devout, 
And so inspired as by Jehovah's breath, 
He swept o'er Ammon Hke a wind of death; 
Even from Aroer to Minnith hewed 
Them hip and thigh, and utterly subdued. 



will offer it up for a burnt offering, ^s And he smote them from Aroer, 

29 Then the Spirit of the Lord came even till thou come to Minnith, even 

upon Jephthah. ^2 And he passed twenty cities, and unto the plain of 

over unto the children of Ammon the vineyards, with a very great 

to fight against them ; and the Lord slaughter. Thus the children of 

delivered them into his hands. Ammon were subdued before the 



guilty and deserving of death by the command of Apollo, than his 
violated nature asserting itself, he was horribly astonished and troubled 
with monstrous apparitions, the maddening sight of the avenging Furies 
that ceased not to pursue him, — a conscience-stricken matricide, unable 
to escape the snaky horror of the haunting guilt, 

" His own soul hissing at him in the dark." 
The artless story, as narrated by the sacred historian, transcends all art. 
Its pathos is unequalled. It has dramatic completeness. Nothing is 
wanting to the mise en scene. The Tragic Muse is fairly outdone in her 
appropriate province, which, according to the great critic of antiquity, is 
to purify the heart by pity and terror. Assuming she borrowed she has 
not improved. The copy departs from the original only to fall below it. 
The Iphigenia of ^schylus struggles and resists, and perishes amid 
piteous shrieks and cries for help. This is the version Lucretius adopts. 
Euripides, on the other hand, — wherein he is followed by Ovid among 
the ancients, and Racine among the moderns — represents her as willing 
to die, but as being saved at the last moment when about to be immo- 



28o THE EVANGEL. 

Ah ! who is this with timbrels and with dances 
Coming to meet him as he home advances ? 
It is his daughter, and besides this one 
He has no child, no daughter and no son. 
What horror in his looks ! He stands aghast ! 
O fatal vow, irrevocably past ! 



children of Israel. ^* And Jephthah dances : and she was his only child ; 

came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, beside her he had neither son nor 

behold, his daughter came out to daughter. ^5 ^nd it came to pass, 

meet him with timbrels and with when he saw her, that he rent his 



lated, by the substitution of a deer through the interposition of Diana. 
Snatched from Aulis she was conveyed to Tauris, where she became a 
priestess of that goddess, — whence comes the " Iphigenia at Aulis " and 
"Ipigenia at Tauris " of Euripides, Racine, and others. This device of 
Euripides tallies so exactly with what happened in the case of Abraham's 
offering up his son Isaac, that one cannot help suspecting that the writer 
had some knowledge of Genesis as well as Judges. 

He puts into the mouth of his heroine many admirable sentiments, but 
none that reach the loftiness of the high-minded daughter of Jephthah, 
who while grand in speech is no less grand in act. Many have said, " It is 
sweet to die for one's country," but where was there ever one that so 
sublimely exemplified it? Her piety like her patriotism was a pure and 
intense flame, burning with an immortal steadiness. From the beginning 
lo the end she was calmly resolute. Considerately filial, it was probably 
for her father's sake quite as much as her own that she asked a two 
months' respite. Unselfish to the last degree, she would have the bloody 
act of sacrifice appear to be her own rather than her father's, by a spon- 
taneous punctual return at the end of the allotted time. And then the 
motive and matter of her lament are so identical with that of another 
heroine of tragedy, the "Antigone" of Sophocles, uttered just before 
her entombment alive, that one is almost tempted to believe that this 
second of the immortal trio of Greek tragedians must have had access to 
the same source of inspiration as the other two ; or if the fact of prior 
knowledge be thought incredible, the fact of prior existence and virtual 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 28 1 

*' Alas ! alas ! " he cries with frantic woe — - 
" My daughter, thou hast brought me very low ; 
Thou art as one of them that trouble me : 
I promised and must pay, O agony !" 

^' Father, fulfil unto the Lord thine oath : 
Since thou hast won, to die I am not loath: 



clothes and said, Alas, my daugh- mouth unto the Lord, do to me ac- 

ter, thou hast brought me very low, cording to that which hath proceeded 

and thou art one of them that trou- out of thy mouth, forasmuch as the 

ble me ; for I have opened my Lord hath taken vengeance for thee 

mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot of thine enemies, even of the children 

go back, 26And she said unto him, of Ammon. si^nd she said unto 

My father, if thou hast opened thy her father. Let this thing be done 



anticipation of one of the most affecting passages in the play is undeni- 
able. 

History is older than fable, and is easily distinguishable from it. Truth 
is strange but never bizarre. It is certainly wonderful, how in the compass 
of a few verses, we should have — in a form historically authentic, free 
from the impertinences of fiction — the germs of famous tragedies, operas, 
oratorios, and paintings. Whether we suppose a Greek transplantation 
or not, the germs are there on any hypothesis, and art in developing them 
had comparatively an easy task. Besides those great master-pieces that 
formed the pride of the Grecian stage, and the two dramas of Racine, 
we have two pieces on the same fruitful theme, viz : " Iphigenia at Aulis," 
and "Iphigenia at Tauris," by Gluck, the so-called regenerator of the 
musical opera. George Buchanan wrote two tragedies in Latin — entitled 
"Jephthes, Sive Votum." and " Baptistes, Sive Calumnia," and it is 
remarkable that a rash oath lies at the bottom of the catastrophe in both 
cases. The sacrifice of Jephthah's Daughter forms the subject of 
Oratorios by Handel and Rheinthaler. In painting, we have "Jeph- 
thah's Vow," by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Among the Greeks, there was a 
most celebrated picture from the tale of Iphigenia by Timantes men- 
tioned by Cicero. Chalcas, Ulysses, Menelaus, and several other person- 



282 THE EVANGEL. 

But give me two months' respite, while I roam 
The mountains, and my childlessness bemoan." 

O dire mistake ! the two months ended now 
The father did according to his vow : 
And 'twas a custom thence, four days each year, 
For Israel's daughters to lament her here. 

This was, when much was done Heaven disallows — 
An age of ignorance is an age of vows — 

for me : let me alone two months, months, that she returned unto her 

that I may go up and down upon father, who did with her according 

the mountains, and bewail my vir- to his vow : and she knew no man. 

ginity, I and my fellows. ="^ And he And it was a custom in Israel, 

said, Go. And he sent her away 4o That the daughters of Israel went 

for two months : and she went with yearly to lament the daughter of 

her companions, and bewailed her Jephthali the Gileadite four days in 

virginity upon the mountains. ^^And a year, 
it came to pass at the end of two 

ages, having been introduced with countenances expressive of the greatest 
grief and pity, the painter, at a loss how to express the superior- agony of 
the father, threw a veil carelessly over his face; "because," as Cicero 
expresses it, "no art of the pencil could delineate the extreme grief he 
endured" — " quoniam summum ilium luctum pencillo non posset imitari." 
Opie had recourse to the same doubtful strategem in his painting of the 
Jewish maiden about to be sacrificed. Cui bono ? — why a veil when there 
was nothing as we conceive to hide; no grief, no terror, only a martyr 
smile, and a " face as it had been the face of an angel." 

Here as elsewhere we have occasion to admire the just reserve of Scrip- 
ture. Its silence is sublime. What it enjoins it practices. Its language 
is, "Judge not" — especially, "Judge nothing before the time," Men 
are excessively prone to these judicial anachronisms — are noisily and 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 283 

Ungoverned by the statutes of the Skies, 

Men did that which was right in their own eyes. 

A cruel promise, even when bewept, 

Was for the oath's sake and for pride's sake kept. 

Conscience is terrible when it is wrong : 

Honor though false compelling is and strong; 

Uncounted dedicated victims bleed 

To the insatiate Moloch of a creed : 

Complacent saints make drunk with blood the sod, 

And murder holds up crimson hands to God. 



Judges xvii : 6; xxi : 25. In those ther, said, Give me here John Bap- 
days there was no king in Israel, but tist's head in a charger. And the 
every man did that which was riglit king was sorry : nevertheless for 
in his own eyes. the oath's sake, and them which sat 

[Matt, xix : 6. But when Herod's with him at meat, he commanded it 
birthday was kept, the daughter of to be given her. i" And he sent and 
Herodias danced before them, and beheaded John in the prison, 
pleased Herod. 'Whereupon he Acts xi : i. And Saul, yet breath- 
promised with an oath to give what- ing out threatenings and slaughter 
soever she would ask. » And she against the disciples of the Lord, 
being before instructed of her mo- went unto the high priest. 



prematurely positive ; swift where they ought to be slow ; forward to 
damn or save ; to do what an archangel cannot do — unravel all the intri- 
cacies of human character and conduct, and determine the exact measure 
of individual guilt or innocence in a given case. We can weigh actions 
better than we can motives. The hand of Omniscience needs to hold the 
scales when hearts are to be judged. Nothing can be more foolish and 
indecent than the curiosity which prompts us to ask, " ' Are there few that 
be saved ? ' What of Jephthah ? What of Solomon ? " We are as good 
as told: "That is none of your business; look out for yourself!'' 
Certainly it is no mean proof of the superiiuman origin of tlie Bible, that 



284 THE EVANGEL. 

Swear not at all, or mind ye what ye swear, 
Lest your oath trip you and your soul ensnare. 
Your vows are impious, if you vow not well; 
Make no rash covenant with death and hell. 
You're not your own, and have no right at all 
Your future life to mortgage or forestall; 
Gamble your heritage ; allow to-day 
To pawn your rich to-morrows or convey. 
How can ye tell, who grope and dimly see 
The present best, what future best may be ? 
The duty of to-morrow, or next year. 
When scarce the duty of to-day is clear? 
To wrest the rights that to each day belong, 
Is usurpation, robbery, and wrong. 
See bankrupt prodigals repent in rags 
Their spendthrift braveries and foolish brags ! 



Matth. V : 33. Again ye have them of old time, Thou shalt not 
heard that it was said by [or to] forswear thyself, but shalt perform 



it contains no commitments of that sort. It speaks the truth ; it tells the 
facts, without favor or affection, with no effort to palliate or conceal. It 
bears faithful and true witness. It spares none — not even David the man 
after God's heart. The final fates of men will be settled at the Last 
Judgment, and there are no impertinent forestallments of its decisions and 
awards. It is impossible not to see that there is a divine propriety in all 
this. 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN 285 

See ignorant novices in secret weep, 

Their rash commitment and unnatural leap ! 

Or, if the warped and morbid mind still clings 

To fasts and vigils, fond, fantastic things, 

To bodily exercise that profits not, 

While claims of kind and kindred are forgot — 

Under the vain conceit, that God demands 

The unblest offering, lops feet and hands 

From the quick frame with sacrificial knife ; 

The maimed humanity of half a life 

Lays on God's altar ; tears away the heart ; 

Makes disabilities ; throws away a part — 

Still is it true, howe'er sincere may be 

The superstition of such devotee, 

(Sincere as Jephthah's and as blind as his,) 

That vow is violent, and vicious is. 

Void from the first, a frenzy of the breath, 

Which binds and dedicates to virtual death 



unto the Lord thine oaths : ^4 gut I said, we have made a covenant with 

say unto you, Swear not at all ; . . death, and with hell are at an agree- 

s"' But let your communication be, ment, &c. 18. And your covenant 

Yea, yea ; Nay, nay: for whatso- with death shall be disannulled, and 

ever is more than these cometh of your agreement with hell shall not 

evil. stand. 
Is. xxviii : 15. Because ye have 



286 THE EVANGEL. 

God-given powers of body and of soul, 
A mangled part of one great living whole. 

Obey! that is enough for fallen man : 
On soaring pinions let him if he can 
Rise to the level of the law of God ; 
Fill the immense of the commandment broad : 
No fear he will, for none has done it yet, 
Exceed his duty and bring Heaven in debt. 
God wants no superserviceable Saul 
To flatter Him with compliments at all ; 
To offer a conjoling compromise 
Of substituted, unasked sacrifice. 
** Better than sacrifice is to obey. 
Than fat of rams to hearken" — hear Heaven say. 
Not thousand rams ; not in libations poured 
Rivers of oil ten thousand to the Lord ; 



I Sam. XV : 22. And Samuel said, thou [Saul] hast rejected the word 

Hath the Lord as great delight in of the Lord, he hath also rejected 

burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in thee from being king. Micah vi : 6. 

obeying the voice of the Lord ? Wlierewith shall I come before the 

Behold, to obey is better than sac- Lord, and bow myself before the 

rifice, and to hearken than the fat high God ? Shall I come before 

of rams. 23 Por rebellion is as the him with burnt offerings, with calves 

sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness of a year old ? ' Will the Lord be 

is as iniquity and idolatry. Because pleased with thousands of rams, or 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 28/ 

Not my first-born for -my transgression given, 
My body's fruit for my soul's sin, please Heaven. 
God is not Moloch: He has no delioht 
In these, nor in self-torture, but in right. 



When God sent down His Son for our relief, 

Did He not bruise Him and put Him to grief? 

By no direct infliction, Heaven forbid ! 

But, in a sense divinely true, He did. 

Christ suffered ne'er by His own act or fault : 

When struck. He asked the wherefore of th' as- 
sault : 

He practiced no austerities ; and died 

By foreign hands, not as a suicide. 

To save a world. He would no law transgress ; 

He bore the curse of sin in sinlessness : 



with ten thousand rivers of oil ? John xviii : 22. And when he had 

Shall I give my first-born for my thus spoken, one of the officers 

transgression, the fruit of my body which stood by struck Jesus with 

for the sin of my soul? ^He hath the palm of the hand, saying, An- 

showed thee, O man, what is good : swerest thou the high priest so ? 

and what doth the Lord require of 23 And Jesus answered him. If I 

thee, but to do justly, and to love have spoken evil, bear witness of 

mercy, and to walk humbly with the evil : but if well, why smitest 

thy God ? thou me ? Matth. xxvi : 53. Think- 



288 THE EVANGEL. 

Legions of angels ever at His beck, 
He held His own omnipotence in check 
That hour and power of darkness ; and let swell 
The whelming billows of outrageous hell ; 
Permitted wicked men the nails to drive, 
And lift Him up upon the cross alive — 
A crowning demonstration, how depraved, 
How lost to hope, the race He came to save. 

O'erweening Ephraim, to anger quick, 
With Jephthah sought a quarrel now to pick : 

"Why didst thou fight, and not of us inquire ? 
We o'er thy head will burn thy house with fire." 

Then Jephthah fought with Ephraim and pre- 
vailed ; 
Too late their boastful folly they bewailed. 



est thou that I cannot pray to my Judges xii : i. And the men of 

Father, and he shall presently give Ephraim . . . said unro Jephthah, 

me more than twelve legions of an- Wherefore passedest.thou over to 

gels? Luke xxii : 52. Then Jesus tight against the children of Ammon, 

said, , . Be ye come out as against and didst not call us to go with 

a thief, with swords and staves? thee? we will burn thine house upon 

f.3 When I was daily with you in the thee with fire. . . ■* Then Jephthah 

temple, ye stretched forth no hands gathered together all the men of 

against me : but this is your hour, Gilead and fought with the men of 

and the power of darkness. Ephraim. . . s And the Gileadites- 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 289. 

There at the crossings of the Jordan, who 
Failed in their Shibboleth, at once he slew ; 
And forty thousand perished and two more 
Of Ephraimites, piled up along the shore. 

How good, how pleasant, nought can it excel^ 
For brethren all in unity to dwell ; 
T' agree to differ ; since while man is man, 
There must be difference, do what we can. 
How petty oft the causes that divide — 
Some little nothing fondly magnified. 
Less than a letter, roughness of the breath, 
A mere unasperated Shibboleth : 
Brothers in all agreeing, all the same, 
Save in the pronunciation of a name. 
Vain are our wranglings, easy 't were to prove, 
He fails in every thing who fails in love. 



took the passages of the Jordan frame to pronounce it right. Then 
before the Ephraimites: and it was they took him, and slew him at the 
so, that when those Ephraimites passages of Jordan : and there fe'l 
which were escaped said, Let me at that time of the Ephraimites for- 
go over, that the men of Gilead said ty and two thousand. [Ps. cxxxiii. 
unio him. Art thou an Ephraimite ? Behold, how good and how pleas- 
If he said, Nay; 6 Then said they ant it is for brethren to dwell togeth- 
untohim. Say now Shibboleth ; and er in unity, etc.] 
he said Sibboleth : for he could not 



290 



THE EVANGEL. 



Let men reserve anathemas for sin 
Lies and hypocrisies concealed within ; 
And excommunicate from Church and State 
That great heresiarch whose name is Hate. 



Kings ruled instead of Judges. Th' Ammonites, 
Marching on Jabesh Gilead too weak to fight, 
Barbarities ingenious to devise, 
Required of all the people their right eyes 
In token of submission. Seven days' truce 
Were by the men of Jabesh turned to use. 



I Samuel viii : i. Then all the 
elders of Israel . . came to Samuel 
unto Ramah, and said unto him, 
5 Behold thou art old, and thy sons 
walk not in thy ways ; now make us 
a king to judge us like all the na- 
tions. 6 But the thing displeased 
Samuel. . . ^ And the Lord said 
unto Samuel, Hearken unto the 
voice of the people in all they say 
unto thee ; for they have not rejected 
thee, but they have rejected me. 
Ch. ix : I. Now there was a man of 
Benjamin, whose name was Kish . , 
and he had a son, whose name was 
Saul, a choice young man and good- 
ly. . . 3 And the asses of Kish 



Saul's father were lost. And Kish 
said unto Saul his son, . . Go seek 
the asses. . . Ch. x : i. Then Sam- 
uel took a vial of oil and poured it 
upon his head, and kissed him, and 
said, Is it not because the Lord hath 
anointed thee to be captain over his 
inheritance? 2 When thou art de- 
parted from me to-day, then thou 
shalt find two men by Rachel's sep- 
ulchre . . and they will say unto 
thee, the asses which thou wentest 
to seek are found. 

Ch. xi : I Then Nahash the Am- 
monite came up, and encamped 
against Jabesh-Gilead : and all the 
men of Jabesh said unto Nahash, 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 



291 



They to their kinsman Saul for help appealed : 
Who coming with the cattle from the field 
Heard first the tidings, and no moment lost, 
But raised in Israel a numerous host. 
Surprised the foe, and with great slaughter slew, 
And till high noon continued to pursue. 
The rising tide of popular delight. 
After such proof of merit, reached its height 
In favor of a king ; and therefore Saul 
At Gilgal they proceeded to install ; 



Make a covenant with us, and we 
will serve thee, ^^nd he said on 
one condition, that I may thrust out 
a.ll your right eyes, and lay it for a 
reproach upon all Israel. ^ And the 
elders of Jabesh said unto him, 
Give us seven days' respite, that we 
may send messengers unto all the 
coasts of Israel : and then, if there 
be no man to save us, we will come 
out to thee. 4 Then came the mes- 
sengers to Gibeah of Saul, and told 
the tidings. . . ^ ^nd behold, Saul 
came after the herd out of the field ; 
and Saul said, What aileth the peo- 
ple that they weep ? And they told 
him the tidings of the men of Ja- 
besh. 6 And the Spirit of God came 
upon Saul . . and his anger was 
kindled greatly. 7 And he took a 
yoke of oxen, and hewed them in 
.pieces, and sent them through all 



the coasts of Israel, saying, Whoso- 
ever Cometh not forth after Saul and 
after Samuel, so shall it be done 
unto his oxen. And the fear of the 
Lord fell on the people, and they 
came out with one consent. ^ And 
when he numbered them in Bezek, 
the children of Israel were three 
hundred thousand, and the men of 
Judah thirty thousand. ^ And, they 
said unto the messengers that came. 
This shall ye say unto the men of 
Jabesh-Gilead, To-morrow by that 
time the sun be hot, ye shall have 
help. . . 11 And it was so on the 
morrow that Saul put the people in 
three companies : and they came 
into the midst of the host in the 
morning watch, and slew the Am- 
monites until the heat of the day: 
and it came to pass, that they which 
remained were scattered, so that 



<. 



V 



292 



THE EVANGEL. 



Before anointed by th' officiating hand 
Of Samuel acting under God's command 
Who with divine self-abnegation deigned 
To transfer rule, whereby another reigned, 
For so they willed it, in Jehovah's stead. 
King over Israel, a human head. 

Because in government th' essential thing 
Is not the form. He granted them a king: 
The theoretic theocratic best 
May be in practice even as the rest ; 
Bad as the worst by reason of abuse ; 
As has been often found in human use. 



two of them were not left together. 
12 And the people said unto Samuel, 
Who is he that said. Shall Saul 
reign over us? bring the men, that 
we may put them to death. i3 And 
Saul said. There shall not a man be 
put to death this day : for to-day 
the Lord hath wrought salvation in 
Israel. ^^ Then said Samuel to the 
people, Come, and let us go to Gil- 
gal, and renew the kingdom there ; 
and there they made Saul king 
before the Lord in Gilgal. 

Ch. xii : i. And Samuel said un- 
to all Israel, Behold, I have heark- 
ened imto your voice . . and have 
made you a king over you. . . . 



12 When ye saw that Nr».hash . . _ 
came against you, ye said unto me. 
Nay ; but a king shall reign over 
us ; when the Lord your God was 
your king. . . 23 Qod forbid that I 
should sin against the Lord in ceas- 
ing to pray for you : but I will teach 
you the good and right way : only 
fear the Lord and serve him in truth 
with all your heart : for consider 
how great things he hath done for 
you. But if ye shall do wickedly, 
ye shall be consumed, both ye and 
your king. 

Mark ii : 27. And he [Jesus] 
said unto them. The Sabbath was 
made for man, and not man for the 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 293 

Since polity exists but for its ends, 
What fittest is on many things depends : 
The Lord all-wise ordained no certain mould 
To shape the new exactly like the old : 
No fixedness of outward form decreed 
For Church or State, but left it to the need, 
And just requirements of the age and clime. 
And circumstances changing through all time. 
All institutions from felt wants began ; 
Man was not made for them, but they for man ; 
When that which is has lost its use and power, 
Its right to be, lo ! ceases from that hour. 



Sabbath : therefore, the Son of man 
is Lord also of the Sabbath. 

Ex. xviii : 13. And it came to 
pass on the morrow, that Moses sat 
to judge the people ; and the peo- 
ple stood by Moses from morning 
until the evening. . . i" And Mo- 
ses' father-in-law said unto him, The 
thing thou doest is not good. Thou 
wilt surely wear away. . . 21 pro- 
vide out of all the people able men, 
such as fear God, men of truth, 
hating covetousness ; and place such 
over them, to be rulers of thousands, 
and rulers of hundreds, rulers of 
iifties, and rulers of tens. . . 24 So 
Moses hearkened to his father-in- 
law, and did all he said. 



Acts vi : I. And in those days, 
when the number of the disciples 
was multiplied, there arose a mur. 
muring of the Grecians against the 
Hebrews, because their widows were 
neglected in the daily ministration. 
Then the twelve called the multi- 
tude of the disciples unto them, and 
said. It is not reason that we should 
leave the word of God, and serve 
tables. Wherefore, brethren, look 
out among ye seven men of honest 
report, full of the Holy Ghost and 
wisdom, whom we may appoint 
over this business. 

Judges ix : 6. And all the men 
of Shechem . . and all the house 
of Millo went and made Abimelech 



<■ 



294 



THE EVANGEL 



Judges were powerless — their function dead 
When Israel lost its oneness in its Head. 
The substance gone, why should not Heaven let go- 
The semblance and the shadow and the show ? 
Dupes of a name, if some bend willing necks 
To bramble kings and vile Abimelecks, 
All kings, 'tis just to say, are not like these ; 
There have been Davids crowned among the trees — 
The olive gave its fatness ; fig its sweetness gave ;. 
The vine its cheer, the land to bless and save. 

That which God once approved He disallows ; 
Discrowns dishonored and unworthy brows : 



king. 'And when they told it to 
Jotham, he went and stood in the 
top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up 
his voice, and cried, and said unto 
them, Hearken unto me, ye men of 
Shechem, that God may hearken 
unto you. ^ The trees went forth 
on a time to anoint a king over 
them ; and they said unto the olive 
tree, Reign thou over us. 9 But the 
olive tree said unto them, Should I 
leave my fatness, wherewith by me 
they honor God and man, and go 
to be promoted over the trees? 

10 And the trees said to the fig tree, 
Come thou, and reign over us. 

11 But the fig tree said unto them, 



Should I forsake my sweetness, and 
my good fruit, and go to be pro- 
moted over the trees ? 12 Then said 
the trees unto the vine, Come thou, 
and reign over us. i^ And the vine 
said unto them, Should I leave my 
wine, which cheereth God and man, 
and go to be promoted over the 
trees? !•* Then said all the trees 
unfo the bramble. Come thou, and 
reign over us. ^^ And the bramble 
said unto the trees, If in truth ye 
anoint me king over you, then come 
and put your trust in my shadow ; 
and if not, let fire come out of the 
bramble, and devour the trees of 
Lebanon.] 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 295 

Yea, breaks succession, disinherits kings, 
His own anointed down to darkness flings ; 
Careless of all except the inner fact, 
The living law that underiies all act. 



Give thanks unto the Lord ; make known 
His memorable doings to His own ! 
Ye seed of Abraham His servant, ye 
Children of Jacob who His chosen be ! 
Sing psalms to Him ! Our God He is the Lord; 
His covenant with Abraham, the word 
He spake to thousand generations, still 
Remembering to faithfully fulfil, 
Confirmed to Jacob for a law, that He 



I Sam. xvi : i. And the Lord 
repented that he had made Saul 
king over Israel. And the Lord 
said to Samuel, How long wilt thou 
mourn for Saul, seeing I have re- 
jected him from reigning over Is- 
rael? fill thine horn with oil. and go, 
I will send thee to Jesse the Beth- 
lehemite : for I have provided me a 
king among his sons. 

Ps. cv : I. O give thanks unto 
the Lord. . . ^ Remember his mar- 
vellous works that he hath done. 



^ O ye seed of Abraham his servant, 
ye children of Jacob his chosen. 
' He is the Lord our God. 8 He 
hath remembered his covenant for- 
ever, the word which he commanded 
for a thousand generations. 9 Which 
covenant he made with Abraham. . 
in And confirmed the same unto 
Israel for a law. . . u Saying, 
Unto thee will I give the land of 
Canaan. 12 When they were but a 
few in number, yea. very few, and 
strangers in it. is When they went 



( 



296 THE EVANGEL. 

Would give the land of Canaan them in fee. 

When they were few in number, very few 

And strangers in it, He would let none do 

Them injury or wrong: yea, He reproved 

Kings for their sakes. When He removed 

And brake the staff of bread. He Joseph sent 

Before them into Egypt : the innocent 

They hurt with fetters ; till the time, when tried, 

Pharaoh him loosed, and set him by his side, 

Making him lord of all his house, to bind 

His princes at his pleasure ; wise in mind. 

Wisdom to teach his senators : as he the same. 

And Israel also into Egypt came, 

Jacob into the land of Ham, to bide. 

God as the drops of dew him multiplied: 

Till Egypt jealous. He with lifted hand 

Smote with strange judgments all the guilty land, 



from one nation to another. . . !•* He with fetters. . . i* Until the time 

suffered no man to do them wrong ; that his word came : the word of the 

yea, he reproved kings for their Lord tried him. 20 The king sent 

sakes ; . . i^ Moreover, he called and loosed him. . . 21 He made 

for a famine upon the land : he him lord of his house. , . 22 Xo 

brake the whole staff of bread, i'' He bind his princes at his pleasure! 

sent a man before them, even Jo- and teach his senators wisdom, 

seph, . . ^8 Whose feet they hurt 23 Israel also came into Egypt ; and 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 29/ 

And brought them forth with high and out- 
stretched arm, 
And marvellously preserved them from all harm. 

Would God His captive people free, 
He leads them forth miraculously 
Through the cleft waters of the sea. 

He bids them fear not, though behind 

Foes follow faster than the wind ; 

Whom He hath loosed no power can bind. 

As by His Spirit they are led, 
No heavenly Eden lies outspread, 
But bowline wilderness instead : 



'fc. 



The Promised Land is not yet won ; 
Their Exodus is but begun, 
The Red Sea is their Rubicon — 



Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. sent Moses his servant, and Aaron 

24 And he increased his people great- whom he had chosen. 27 They 

ly, and make them stronger than shewed his signs among them, and 

their enemies. 25 He turned their wonders in the land of Ham. . . 

heart to hate his people, to deal ^^ He brought them forth also with 

subtilely with his servants. 26 He silver and gold, etc. 



V 



298 THE EVANGEL. 

That crossed, the die's forever cast, 
Baptized and buried to the past, 
The future opens new and vast. 

They walk by faith and not by sight, 
But through the darkness of their night 
Unnumbered stars shed cheerful light. 

God spake from quaking Sinai — there were 
cloud, 
Lightnings, and thunderings, and trumpet loud, 
And all the people trembled as they saw : 
From His right hand went forth a fiery law. 
He loved the people, and ordained likewise 
Them civil laws, and rites of sacrifice. 
And set up in their midst a moving Tent, 
His Sanctuary, dwelling evident 
Among them, powerful to bless 
In all their wanderings in the wilderness. 

Ex. xix : 16. And it came to pass Deut. xxxiii : 2. And he [MosesJ 

on the third day in the morning, said, The Lord came from Sinai. . . 

that there were thunders and light- From his right hand went a fiery 

nings, and a thick cloud upon the law for them. 3 Yea, he loved the 

mount, and the voice of the trumpet people, . . Ex. xxv : 8. And let them 

exceeding loud ; so that all the peo- make me a sanctuary ; that I may 

pie that was in the camp trembled, dwell among them. 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 

Their weary wanderings in the desert o'er, 
The tribes encamped upon the eastern shore, 
Their several banners streaming and afloat, 
How shall they cross the formidable moat 
Of the deep Jordan, with a watchful foe 
Right opposite in high-walled JERICHO? 



299 



And when the king of Moab, Balak son 
Of Zippor, saw all Israel had done 
To th' Amorites — the conqueror of those 
Who them had dispossessed, their ancient foes- 
He messengers dispatched with haste and fear, 
Bearing rewards of divination, to a seer 



Num. xxii : i. And the children 
of Israel set forward, and pitched in 
the plains of Moab on this side Jor- 
dan by Jericho. [Ch. xxi : 23. And 
Sihon king of the Amorites would 
not suffer Israel to pass through his 
bord^. . 2^And Israel smote him him 
and possessed his land.] 2And Ba- 
lak the son of Zippor saw all that Is- 
rael had done to the Amorites. .^And 
Moab was sore afraid. ^And said un- 
to the elders of Midian, now shall this 
company lick up all that are round 
about us, as the ox licketh up the 



grass of the field... ^ And Balak, 
king of the Moabites, sent messen- 
gers therefore to Balaam, the son of 
Beor to Pethor, which is by the riv- 
er [Euphrates], to call him, saying, 
Behold there is a people come out 
from Egypt. . ^ Come now, there- 
fore, I pray thee, curse me this peo- 
ple ; for they are too mighty for 
me : peradventure I shall prevail, 
that we may smite them, and that I 
may drive them out of the land : for 
I wot that he whom thou blessest is 
blessed, and he whom thou cursest 



\ 



300 



THE EVANGEL. 



Named Balaam son of Beor, far away 
Beyond th' Euphrates, saying, '* Come, I pray — 
A people out of Egypt, that, alas ! 
Threaten to lick up all as ox the grass, 
Invade our borders, and I fear the worst : 
Curse me this people that they may be cursed, 
For whom thou cursest they are cursed no doubt, 
And peradventure I can drive them out." 

And God to Balaam said, ''Thou shalt not go: 
Thou shall not curse the people — tell them so — 
For they are blessed." And Balak envoys sent 
A second time, and Balaam with them went. 
Riding his ass, the Angel of the Lord 



is cursed. 'And the elders of Moab 
and of Midian departed with the 
rewards of divination in their hand ; 
and they came unto Balaam, and 
spake unto him the words of Balak. . 
12 And Godsaidunto Balaam, Thou 
shalt not go with them , thou shalt 
not curse the people ; for they are 
blessed, i^ And Balaam rose up in 
the morning, and said unto the 
princes of Balak, Get you into your 
land : for the Lord refuseth to give 
me leave to go with you. ..is And 
Balak sent yet again princes, more. 



and more honorable than they. 
i^And they came to Balaam and said 
unto him. Thus saith Balak, the son 
of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, 
hinder thee from coming unto me: 
I'^For I will promote thee unto very 
great honor, and I will do whatso- 
ever thou sayest unto me : come, 
therefore, I pray thee, curse me this 
people. i^And Balaam answered 
and said. If Balak would give me 
his house full of silver and gold, I 
cannot go beyond the word of the 
Lord my God, to do less or more.. . 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 



30 r 



Stood stopping up the way with a drawn sword 
Seen by the beast alone, who terrified 
Out of the path turned suddenly aside 
And Balaam smote her: and when they had gone 
Between two walls a little farther on, 
She, at the angelic apparition, rushed 
Aside against the mural fence, and crushed 
The rider's foot, who smote her as before : 
The Angel of the Lord appeared once more 
Now in a narrow place ; and when the ass 
Perceived there was no room to turn or pass 
She fell down under Balaam where she stood : 
Who smote her with his staff in wrathful mood. 



2iAnd Balaam rose up in the 
morning, and saddled his ass, and 
went with the princes of Moab. 
22And God's anger was kindled be- 
cause he went : and the angel of the 
Lord stood in the way for an adver- 
sary against him. .^^Andtheass saw 
the angel standing in the way, and 
his sword drawn in his hand : and 
the ass turned aside out of the way, 
and went into the field : and Balaam 
smote the ass, to turn her into the 
way, 24 But the angel of the Lord 
stood in a path of the vineyards, a 
wall being on this side, and on that. 



25 And when the ass saw the angel of 
the Lord she thrust herself unto the 
wall, and crushed Balaam's foot 
against the wall ; and he smote her 
again. 26And the angel of the Lord 
went farther and stood in a narrow 
place, where was no place to turn 
aside either to the right hand or to 
the left. 27 And when the ass saw 
the angel of the Lord she fell down 
under Balaam: and Balaam's anger 
was kindled and he smote the ass 
with a staff. 28And the Lord open- 
ed the mouth of the ass, and she 
said unto Balaam, What have I 



302 



THE EVANGEL. 



The dumb ass, speaking with man's voice, forbade 
The madness of the prophet, who essayed, 
Loving the wages of unrighteousness, 
In a forbidden path his way to press. 
Unless the faithful beast once and again 
Had turned aside he surely had been slain, 
As by the Angel he was sternly told, 
When Him his eyes were opened to behold. 
** Lo, I have sinned : if it displease Thee then 
I will return/' he said. 

" Go with the men," 
The Angel said, " to do not what they seek, 
But speak the word that I to thee shall speak." 



done unto thee, that thou hast smi- 
teth me these three times? 

[i Peter ii: 15. Balaam, the son 
of Besor, who loved the wages of 
unrighteousness; i^g^t was rebuk- 
ed for his iniquity ; the dumb ass 
speaking with man's voice forbade 
the madness of the prophet.] 

31 Then the Lord opened the eyes 
of Balaam, and he saw the angel of 
the Lord standing in the way, and 
his sword drawn in his hand : and 
he bowed down and fell flat on his 
face. 32And the angel of the Lord 
said unto him, Wherefore hast thou 
smitten thine ass these three times ? 

Behold I went out to withstand 



thee, "because thy way is perverse 
before me ; and the ass saw me and 
turned from me these three times : 
unless she had turned from me, 
surely now I had slain thee, and 
saved her alive. 34 And Balaam 
said, I have sinned : for I knew 
not that thou stoodest in the way 
against me ; now, therefore, if it 
displease thee, I will get me back 
again. ^sAnd the angel of the Lord 
said unto Balaam, Go with the men: 
but only the word that I shall speak 
unto thee, thou shalt speak. So 
Balaam went with the princes of 
Balak. . . 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 303 

Balak to Balaam said : " Wherewith shall I 
Present myself before the Lord Most High? 
Will He be with burnt offerings appeased, 
With calves of a year old? Will He be pleased 
With thousands of fat rams ; of oil outpoured 
Ten thousand rivers sacred to the Lord? 
Will my first-born, the nearest to the throne, 
My body's fruit for my soul's sin atone?" 

*' Nay, He hath showed thee what is good, O man ! 

The Lord requireth since the world began 

But to do justly, and to mercy love. 

And to walk humbly with thy God above." 

And on the morrow Balak Balaam took 
To a high place of Baal, whose outlook 



[Micah vi : 5. O my people, re- Lord be pleased with thousands of 

member now what Balak king of rams, or with ten thousands of riv- 

Moab consulted, and what Balaam ers of oil ? shall I give my first 

the son of Beor answered him from born for my transgression, the fruit 

Shittim unto Gilgal ; that ye may of my body for the sin of my soul? 

know the righteousness of the Lord. » He hath showed the, O man, what 

« Wherewith shall I come before is good ; and what doth the Lord re- 

the Lord, and bow myself be- quire of thee, but to do justly, and 

fore the high God ? shall I come be- to love mercy, and to walk humbly 

fore him with burnt offerings, with with thy God ?] 

•calves of a year old ? "^ Will the ^i Balak took Balaam and brought 



\ 



304 THE EVANGEL. 

Made in the light of morning visible 
The utmost of the camp of Israel. 
And he took up his parable, and said ; • 

"■ Balak the king of Moab hath me led 
From mountains of the east, from Aram high^ 
Saying, Come curse me Jacob, and defy. 
How shall I curse, or how defy, whom first 
The Lord hath not defied and hath not cursed?' 
For from this rocky summit I him see : 
So he shall dwell alone ; and shall not be 
Reckoned among the nations. Who can count 
The dust of Jacob, to the number mount 
Of the fourth part of Israel. Peaceful is 
The good man's death, be my last end like his !" 



him up into the high places of Baal, rocks I see him, and from the hills- 

that there he might see the utmost I behold him : lo, the people shall 

part of the people.. Ch. xxiii : 7. dwell alone, and shall not be reck- 

And he [Balaam] took up his para- oned among the nations! i" Who 

ble and said, Balak the king of can count the dust of Jacob, and 

Moab hath brought me from Aram, the number of the fourth part of 

out of the mountains of the east, Israel ? Let me die the death of 

saying, Come, curse me Jacob, and the righteous and let my last end be 

come, defy me Israel, s How shall like his. ^i And Balak said unto 

I curse whom God hath not cursed? Balaam, What hast thou done un- 

or how defy, whom the Lord hath tome? I took thee to curse mine 

not defied ? » From the top of the enemies, and, behold, thou hast 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAxV. 305, 

And Balak said : " Thou dost not curse but bless." 

" I am God's mouth and I can do no less." 

Then Balak said : " Come to another spot 
Where thou shalt only see a part, and not 
The whole of them, and curse me them from 

thence." 
Then brought him to the top of PiSGAH, whence 
He saw in part th' encampment in the plain. 
And he took up his parable again : 

" Rise up and hear me, Balak, testify : 
Lo, God is not a man that he should lie, 
Or change His mind. Make good and do He will 
What He hath said. Behold, I but fulfill 



blessed them altogether? 12 And Pisgah. .is And he took up his para- 
he answered and said, Must I not ble and said, Rise up, Balak, and 
take heed to speak that which the hear. . 

Lord hath put into my mouth ? i^ God is not man that he should 

13 And Balak said unto him. Come, lie ; neither the son of man that he- 

I pray thee, with me into another should repent: hath he said, and 

place from whence thou mayest see shall he not do it ? or hath he spo- 

them : thou shalt see but the utmost ken and shall he not make it good > 

part of them, and shalt not see 20 Behold, I have received com- 

themall: and curse me them from mandment to bless: and he hath- 

thence. 1* And he brought him in- blessed; and I cannot reverse it. 

to the field of Zophim, to the top of 21 He hath not beheld iniquity in. 



3o6 THE EVANGEL. 

Th' inevitable commandment not to curse 

But bless : His blessing I cannot reverse. 

He hath in Jacob seen or seemed to see 

Nought of perverseness or iniquity ; 

But out of Egypt Israel hath brought, 

And for him great deliverances wrought. 

All our contrivances are sure to fail — 

Against him no enchantment can avail. 

As a great lion, shall the people rise, 

Who tears and drinks the blood ere down he lies. 

And Balak said : " Them neither curse nor bless." 

** To choose I told thee I was powerless." 

To the high top of Peor next he brought 
Balaam, who, lifting up his eyes, first caught 



Jacob, neither hath he seen per- young lion : he shall not lie down un- 

verseness in Israel : the Lord his til he eat of the prey, and drink the 

God is with him..22Qocj brought blood of the slain. 25 And Balak said 

them out of Egypt, and he hath as unto Balaam, Neither curse them at 

it were the strength of a unicorn, all, nor bless them at all. And Ba- 

23 There is no enchantment against laam answered. Told I not thee, 
Jacob, neitherany divination against saying, All that the Lord speaketh, 
Israel: according to this time it that I must do ? 27 And Balak said 
shall be said of Jacob and Is- unto Balaam, Come, I pray thee, I 
rael, What hath God wrought ! will bring thee unto another place ; 

24 Behold, the people shall rise up as peradventure it will please God that 
a great lion, and lift himself up as a thou mayest curse me them from 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 307 

The sight of Israel biding in his tents, 
With blazoned banners and accoutrements, 
According to their tribes, all in one glance. 
And he, with eyes astare in a deep trance, 
Moved by the Spirit of God, resumed his speech : 

" How goodly are thy tents, how far they reach ! 
As valleys are they spread, as gardens by the side 
Of rivers, as lign-aloes, cedars in their pride 
Beside the waters, pyramids of grace, ' 

Abounding, beautiful — the sterile place 
Made fertile by the buckets he shall pour — 
The desert and the Salt Sea scattered o'er 
With seed, that shall spring up and grow 
As after a Nilotic overflow. 



thence, ^s And he brought him un- of the Almighty, falling into a trance, 

to the top of Peor. but having his eyes open : ^ How 

Ch. xxiv: 2. And Balaam lifted goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and 

up his eyes and he saw Israel abid- thy tabernacles, O Israel ! ^ As 

ing in his tents according to their the valleys are they spread forth, as 

tribes ; and the Spirit of God came gardens by the river's side, as the 

upon him. ^ And he took up his trees of lign-aloes which the Lord 

parable, and said, Balaam the son hath planted, and as cedar trees be- 

of Beor hath said, and the man side the waters. ^ He shall pour 

whose eyes are open hath said: the water out of his buckets, and his 

^ He hath said, which heard the seed shall be in many waters, and 

words of God, which saw the vision his kingdom -shall be higher than 



308 THE EVANGEL. 

His king shall be exalted to a height 

Above all kings. He hath as 't were the might 

Of the wild bull whom hunters' arrows pierce, 

Trampling his foes with rage, exceeding fierce, 

Breaking their bones. He couched, he lay 

As a great lion dreaming of his prey. 

Ah ! who shall stir him up ? Yea, doubtless, he 

Is blessed that blesseth, cursed that curseth thee." 

» And Balak's wrath was kindled, and he said : 

" To curse my foes I called thee, and instead 
Thou hast three times them altogether blessed. 
Flee to thy place. I will not thee invest 
With honor as I thought. The Lord, I wot, 
Hath kept thee back from honor." 



Agag, and his kingdom shall be ex- lo And Balak's anger was kindled 

alted. 8 God brought him forth out against Balaam, and he smote his 

of Egypt ; he hath as it were the hands together, and said, I called 

strength of a unicorn : he shall eat thee to curse mine enemies, and, 

up the nations his enemies, and behold, thou hast altogether blessed 

shall break their bones, and pierce them these three times, ii There- 

them through with his arrows. He fore now flee thou to thy place : I 

couched, he lay down as a Hon, and thought to promote thee to great 

as a great lion : who shall stir him honour, but, lo, the Lord hath kept 

up? Blessed is he that blesseth thee back from honour, 12 And 

thee, and cursed is he that curseth Balaam said. Spake I not also to thy 

thee. messengers which thou sentest unto 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 309 

" Spake I not 
To thy own messengers thou sentest so — 
Beyond the Lord's command I cannot go 
To do or good or bad of my own mind, 
If Balak would me give of gold refined 
And silver his house full ? Now I return 
To my own people ; but before this learn 
What shall this people do to thine at last.'* 

Spake he with staring eyes as in the past : 

*' I shall behold him, but not now nor near. 
Lo ! out of Jacob shall a Star appear, 
A Sceptre out of Israel shall rise, 
And Moab smite and Sheth in dreadful wise. 
Edom and Seir shall a possession be, 
And Israel shall do most valiantly. 



me, saying, i3 jf Balak would give see him, but not now : I shall he- 
me his house full of silver and gold hold him, but not nigh : there shall 
I cannot go beyond the command- come a Star out of Jacob, and a 
ment of the Lord, i* And now, be- Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and 
hold, I go unto my people: come shall smite all the corners of Moab, 
therefore, and I will advertise this and destroy all the children of 
what this people shall do thy people Sheth, is Edom shall be a posses- 
in the latter days, is And he took sion for his enemies ; and Israel 
up his parable and said, Balaam the shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob 
son of Beor said, .falling into a shall come he that shall have do- 
trance with his eyes open, i" I shall minion. 



r^ 



3IO THE EVANGEL. 

[Satanic principalities shall fall, 

And Christ's one Kingdom triumph over all.]"" 



After the blessing, wherewith Moses blest 
The tribes of Israel, from his deep breast 
Pouring the stream of prophecy, he went 
Up from the Plains of Moab, the ascent 
Of Nebo, to the top of lofty Pisgah, where 
He could behold the land Jehovah sware 
To Abraham and his seed, east, west, south, norths 
But not permitted thither to go forth, 
All but the simple view to him denied : 
And he there in the land of Moab died. 
No prophet like to him in power and grace 
Rose after whom the Lord knew face to face. 

Deut. xxxiii : i. And this is the Judah, unto the utmost sea, and the 

blessing, wherewith Moses the man south, and the plain of the valley of 

of God blessed the children of Israel Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto 

before his death, etc. Zoar. And the Lord said unto him, 

Ch. xxxiv: i. And Moses went This is the land which I sware unto 

up from the plains of Moab unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto 

the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Jacob, saying, I will give it unto 

Pisgah, that is over against Jericho, thy seed : I have caused thee to see 

And the Lord shewed him all the it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not 

land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all go over thither. So Moses . . died 

Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, there in the land of Moab, ac- 

and Manasseh, and all the land of cording to the word of the Lord. . . 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 



311 



To Moses dead, his lofty mission done, 
Succeeded Joshua the son of Nun 
His minister. The Lord spake saying : '' Now 
Dead is my servant Moses, forthwith thou 
Therefore arise, and with this people go 
Over this Jordan ! As with Moses so 
I'll be with thee, and will not thee forsake ; 
Thou of the land shalt distribution make. 
Be strong and of good courage ! not afraid, 
Nor at the number of thy foes dismayed." 

And out of Shittim Joshua sent spies 
Over to Jericho, who in disguise 



10 And there arose not a prophet 
since in Israel like unto Moses, 
whom the Lord knew face to face. 
Josh, i : I. Now after the death 
of Moses . . it came to pass, that 
the Lord spake unto Joshua the son 
of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, 
Moses my servant is dead ; now 
therefore arise, go over this Jordan, 
thou, and all this people. ^ As I 
was with Moses so I will be with 
thee : I will not fail thee, nor forsake 
thee. Be strong and of good cour- 
age : for unto this people shalt thou 
divide for an inheritance the land. 



which I sware unto their fathers to 
give them. ^ Be strong and of a 
good courage ; be not afraid, nei- 
ther be thou discouraged. 

Ch. ii : I. And Joshua the son 
of Nun sent out of Shittim two men 
to spy secretly, saying, Go view the 
land, even Jericho. And they went, 
and came into a harlot's house, 
named Rahab, and lodged there. 
2 And it was told the king of Jeri- 
cho.. ^ And the king sent unto Ra- 
hab, saying, Bring forth the men 
that are come to thee, which are en- 
tered into thine house.. ^And the 



312 



THE EVANGEL. 



Entered the house of Rahab, and lodged there. 

And when the king of this was made aware, 
He sent to bring them forth ; but, feigning, she 

Hid them, diverted search, then set them free. 

And for this service made them firmly sware, 

They would herself and all her household spare. 

During three days the officers went through 
The host, and told the people what to do : 
*' When ye shall see the priests take up the Ark, 
Remove ye and go after it, but mark ! 
Come ye not near it ! you and it between 
Let full two thousand cubits intervene ! " 



woman took the two men and hid 
them, and said thus. . ^When it was 
dark the men went out ; whither 
they went I wot not ; pursue after 
them quicldy ; for ye shall overtake 
them. ."And the men pursued after 
them, and after they were gone out 
they shut the gate. . ^And she came 
up unto them upon the roof where 
she had brought them, 9 And she 
said unto the men, I know the Lord 
hath given you the land.. 12 Now 
therefore, swear unto me by the 
Lord, since I have shewed you kind- 
ness, that ye will also shew kindness 
unto my father's house, and give me 
a sure token., ^^ And the men an- 



swered her. Our life for yours, if we 
utter not this our business. .^^ Then 
she let them down by a cord through 
a window : for her house was upon 
the town wall, and she dwelt upon 
the wall.. 22 And they went and 
came unto the mountain, and abode 
there three days, until the pursuers 
were returned. 23 So the two men . . 
came to Joshua, and told him all 
things that befell them. 

Ch. iii : 2. And after three days 
the officers went through the host ; 
3 And commaded the people, saying, 
When ye see the ark of the cov- 
enant., and the priests the Levites 
bearing it, then ye shall remove 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 



313 



The Lord to Joshua said : '' This day, lo, I 

Thee in the sight of all will magnify : 

Thou shalt command the priests to go before 

Bearing the Ark, until they reach the shore 

Of Jordan flooding now its banks and deep : 

Above, its waters shall stand on a heap, 

Cut in mid course, while those below shall fleet, 

Leaving the channel dry soon as their feet 

Who bear the Ark are dipped ; and these shall 

stand 
There in the midst of Jordan on dry land 
Till all shall have passed over." 

All this done. 



from your place and go after it. 
* Yet there shall be a space between 
you and it, about two thousand 
cubits by measure : come not near 
unto it, that ye may know the way 
by which ye must go..'' And the 
Lord said unto Joshua, This day 
will I begin to magnify thee in the 
sight of all Israel. .« And thou shalt 
command the priests that bear the 
ark. .When ye come to the brink. . 
ye shall stand still in the Jordan. . 
12 And Joshua said, Take you twelve 
men, out of every tribe a man. 
i^And it shall come to pass, as soon 
as the soles of the feet of the priests, 
that bear the ark of the Lord of all the 



earth, shall rest in the waters of Jor- 
dan, that the waters shall be cut off 
from the waters that come down 
from above ; and they shall stand 
upon a heap. . is And it came to pass 
as they that bare the ark were come 
unto Jordan, and their feet were 
dipped into the brim of the water, 
(for Jordan overfioweth all his banks 
all the time of the harvest,) i^ That 
the waters which came down from 
above stood and rose upon a heap ; 
and those that came down toward 
the sea of the plain, even the salt 
sea, failed, and were cut off: and 
the people passed over right against 
Jericho. 



314 THE EVANGEL. 

And having passed clean over every one, 

The Lord spake unto Joshua, and said : 

'' Take one man from each tribe, and from the bed 

Of Jordan let them twelve stones bear 

Upon their shoulders while the Ark rests there, 

To be for a memorial and sign 

To witness of this miracle divine." 

When all was finished, and the tribes all had 
Crossed safely over — Reuben first, next Gad 
And then the half tribe of Manasseh, since 
'Twas meet these should thus openly evince 
Their willingness, whose lots were on this side, 
The risks of western conquest to divide. 
Their number forty thousand well-armed men — 
The Ark was out the Jordan brought up then, 

Ch. iv : I. And when all the peo- may be a sign among you. . '' And a 
pie were clean passed over Jordan, memorial unto the children of Israel 
the Lord spake unto Joshua, say- forever, n And when all the people 
ing, 2 Take you twelve men, out of were clean passed over, . .12 the chil- 
every tribe a man, s And command dren of Reuben and of Gad, and 
ye them, saying, Take you hence half of the tribe of Manasseh, pass- 
out of the midst of Jordan, the ed over armed before the children of 
place where the priests feet stood Israel, as Moses spake unto them : 
firm, twelve stones, and ye shall i^ About forty thousand prepared for 
carry them over with you, and leave war to the plains of Jericho. .i^And 
them in the lodging place, where ye the people came out of Jordan on 
shall lodge this night. . 6 That this the tenth day of the first month, and 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 315 

And as the priests touched with their feet the shore 
The waters straight returned, and as before 
Flowed over all the banks. And Israel so 
Encamped in GiLGAL east of Jericho. 
When all the kings who were upon the side 
Of Jordan westward, heard the Lord had dried 
Its waters up for Israel to pass o'er, 
Their hearts dissolved, nor had they spirit more. 

When Israel, held in bondage long, 
Out from the land of bondage went. 

She was His sanctuary strong, 

And from her midst His law was sent. 

The Sea affrighted saw and fled ; 
Jordan amazed was driven back ; 
. While down across the water's bed 

Dry shod she kept her onward track. 

encamped in Gilgal, in the east Lord had dried up the waters of 

border of Jericho. Jordan from before the children of 

Ch. v: I. And when all the kings Israel, until we were passed over 

of the Amorites which were on the their heart melted, neither was 

side of Jordan westward, and all there spirit in them any more 

the kings of the Canaanites which [Ps. cxiv : i. When Israel wentout 

were by the sea, heard that the of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a 



3l6 THE EVAN GEL. 

The conscious Mountains skipped like rams, 

Sinai and Horeb in their place ; 
The quickened Hills leaped up like lambs, 

Thrilled with deep awe from top to base. 

Why Reddest thou, O Sea? and why, 
O Jordan, did thy waters shrink? 

Why then were left your channels dry 
That moment Israel touched your brink? 

Ye Mountains, why skipped ye like rams — 

Sinai and Horeb in your place? 
And why ye Hills leaped ye like lambs. 

Thrilled with deep awe from top to base? 

Tremble thou earth, and be afraid, 
The Lord, the God of Jacob fear ; 

Whose presence turned the rock, and made 
The flint a fount of waters clear ! 

people of strange language ; ajudah wast driven back ? 6 Ye mountains, 

was his sanctuary, and Israel his that ye skipped like rams; and ye 

dominion. ^ Tj^e sea saw it, and little hills, like lambs ? ''Tremble, 

fled: Jordan was driven back, thou earth, at the presence of the 

4 The mountains skipped like rams. Lord, at the presence of the God of 

and the httle hills like lambs. ^What Jacob; ^ which turned the rock 

ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou into a standing water, the flint into 

fleddest? thou Jordan that thou a fountain of waters.] 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 317 

'Twas on the tenth of the first month, the day 
The fourth preceding the passover, they 
Came up from Jordan, the neglected rite 
Of circumcision done, the fourteenth night 
Of the same month they kept the paschal feast 
With bread unleavened ; and the manna ceased. 

When Joshua, that he might better know 
The strength of still uncaptured Jericho, 
Went forth alone, and near the city drew, 
Revolving in his mind what he should do 
To get possession — settled on no plan — 
He lifting up his eyes beheld a Man 
Over against him, in His hand a sword 
Drawn, glittering and terrible ; Him toward 



2 At that time the Lord said from off you. Wherefore the name 

unto Joshua, Make thee sharp of the place is called Gilgal unto 

knives, and circumcise again the this day. 10 And the children of 

children of Israel the second time. . Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept 

•t And this is the cause, all the people the passover on the fourteenth day 

that came out of Egypt that were of the month at even, n And they 

males died in the wilderness, s Now did eat of the old corn of the land 

they were circumcised, but all the on the morrow after the passover, 

people that were born in the wilder- unleavened cakes. 12 And the man- 

ness, they had not circumcised. . , na ceased on the morrow, neither 

8 And when they had done circumcis- had they manna any more, is And 

ing..9The Lord said this day have I it came to pass, when Joshua was 

rolled away the reproach of Egypt by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes 



3l8 THE EVANGEL. 

Th' undaunted Joshua advanced, and said, 
^' Art thou for us, or for our foes instead? " 

And He said, " Nay, but I as Captain now 

Of the Lord's host am come, My soldier thou." 

And he fell on his face, no longer bold, 

And worshiped : " Speak ! to do what he is told 

Thy servant waiteth." 

'' Loose," Jehovah said, 
" Thy shoes from off thy feet ; the ground they 

tread 
Is holy ground." And Joshua did so. 

*' See," saith the Lord, " I've given thee Jericho 
Its king and mighty men of valour — not 
By thy own prowess shall the prize be got — • 

and looked, and behold there stood place whereon thou standestis holy 

a man over against him with his And Joshua did so. 

sword drawn in his hand : and Josh- Ch. vi : i. Now Jericho was 

ua went unto him and said, Art thou straitly shut up. .none went out 

for us or for our adversaries? and none came in. 2 And the Lord 

^*Andhe said. Nay ; but as captain said unto Joshua, See, I have given 

of the host of the Lord am I now into thy hand Jericho, and the king 

come. And Joshua fell on his face thereof, and the mighty men of 

and did worship, and said unto him, valour. ^ And ye shall compass the 

What saith my Lord unto his ser- city, all ye men of war, and go 

vant ? 15 And the captain of the round about the city once. Thus 

Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose shalt thou do six days. ^ And seven 

thy shoe from off thy foot ; for the priests shall bear before the ark 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 319 

Your men of war shall round it marchj no more, 
Seven days seven priests shall blow the Ark before 
Seven trumpets of rams' horns, and after that 
The city battlements shall fall down flat." 

JESUS is Joshua, ' The J ah that saves! ' 
Jordan, again rejoice in all thy waves 
As at His baptism ! Part thy flood anew. 
And let the Strength of Israel pass through ! 
The Angel of the Covenant, He stands 
With pardon and salvation in both hands : 
He comes as Captain now of the Lord's host ; 
By secret operation of the Holy Ghost, 
Fenced Jerichos and each strong-hold of sin 
Shall fall down flat and let the Conqueror in. 

Six days they marched once Jericho about 
Seven times the seventh ; raising a great 
shout, 

seven trumpets of rams' horns : and horns, and when ye hear the sound 

the seventh day ye shall compass of the trumpet, all the people shall 

the city seven times, and the priests shout with a great shout: and the 

shall blow with the trumpets. .sAnd wall of the city shall fall down flat, 

it shall come to pass that when they and the people shall ascend up every 

make a long blast with the rams' man before him,. n And the city 



320 THE EVANGEL. 

The heaving walls fell flat — accursed before 
And doomed of God to be rebuilt no more — 
Accursed all things therein ; none of its wealth 
To be for spoil : but Achan took by stealth 
Shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold, 
With Shinar mantle goodly to behold, 
And hid them in his tent. For this offence, 
The dreadful sin of disobedience, 
God turned away from Israel His face: 
Whence came defeat unlooked for, and disgrace 
The shame of headlong, ignominious flight 
Before their enemy the Amorite 
Though few in number. Thwarted thus and crost 
Ev'n at the threshold, their high prestige lost. 
What hope was there that they would ever win ? 
Then came discovery of Achan's sin, 

shall be accursed, and all that are accursed thing: for Achan, the son^ 
therein, to the Lord: only Rahab of Carmi, of the tribe of Judah took 
the harlot shall live and all that are of the accursed thing: and the 
with her in the house. .1** And ye anger of the Lord was kindled 
in any wise keep yourselves from the against the children of Israel. ^And 
accursed thing, lest ye make your- Joshua sent men to Ai, which is be- 
selves accursed. ^^ But all the silver side Beth-aven, saying, Go up and 
and vessels of brass and iron are view the country. ^ And they re- 
consecrated unto the Lord. . turned to Joshua, and said, Let not 
Ch. vii: i. But the children of all the people go up.. for they are 
Israel committed a trespass in the but few. ^ So there went up about. 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 32 E 

And punishment, and salutary awe 
Of God's severity for broken law. 



Just is Jehovah; all His judgments right: 
Holy the cause in which He deigns to fight : 
If He condemns, who executes the doom 
Must have clean hands, nor venture to presume. 
It is for sordid ends He from afar 
Summons the dreadful enginery of war. 
And puts in human hands th' avenging rod 
To smite the sentenced enemies of God. 
Long-suffering and merciful as just. 
Who only punishes because he must, 
Four generations He delayed to smite. 
For that th' iniquity of th' Amorite 



three thousand men: and they fled 
before the men of Ai . . c And Joshua 
rent his clothes and fell to the 
earth upon his face. .« And said, O 
Lord, what shall I say when Israel 
turneth their backs before their ene- 
mies ! 9 For the Canaanites and all 
the inhabitants of the land shall 
hear of it, and shall environ us 
round, and cut off our name from 
the earth : and what wilt thou do 
unto thy great name ? 10 And the 
Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee 



up.. 11 Israel hath sinned.. for they 
have taken of the accursed thing, 
and have also stolen, and dissembled 
also, and they have put it even 
among their own stuff. .20 Achan 
answered Joshua, I have sinned.. 
2' When I saw among the spoils a 
goodly Babylonish garment \lit. a 
mantle of Shinar], and two hundred 
shekels of silver, and a wedge of 
gold fifty shekels weight, then I 
coveted them, and took them ; and 
behold, they are hid in the earth in 



322 



THE E \^ A N G E L . 



Was not yet full. Ccrr.niissicn now to wrest 
Canaan, usurped and not by right possest, 
He gives to Israel ; fulfilling so 
The promise made to Abraham long ago. 



Fell Jericho by miracle : Ai next 
Was burned with fire: and when five kings, sore 

vext 
At Gibeon's league with Israel, combined 
Against that city and its fall designed, 



the midst of my tent.. 2'' And all 
Israel stoned him with stones and 
burned them with fire.. 2^ So the 
Lord turned from the fierceness of 
his anger. Wherefore the name of 
that place was called The valley of 
Achor, unto this day. 

Ch. viii: i. And the Lord said 
unto Joshua. .Arise, go up to Ai : 
see, I have given into thy hand the 
king of Ai, and his people, and his 
city, and his land. 

Ch. ix : 3. And when the inhab- 
itants of Gibeon heard what Joshua 
had done unto Jericho and to Ai, 
4 They did work wilily , and went 
as if they had been ambassadors, 
and took old sacks upon their asses, 
and wine bottles, old, and rent, and 
bound up ; ^And old shoes clouted 
upon their feet, and old gar- 
ments upon them; and all the 
bread of their provisions was dry 



and mouldy. ^ And they went to 
Joshua unto the camp at Gilgal 
and said. We be come from a far 
country: now therefore make ye a 
league with us. .i"' And Joshua made 
a league with them to let them live : 
16 And three days after they heard 
that they were their neighbours and 
dwelt among them. 

Ch. x: I. When Adoni-zedek 
king of Jerusalem had heard. .2 He 
feared greatly because Gibeon was 
a great city.. ^ And sent unto Ho- 
ham king of Hebron, and unto Pi- 
ram king of Jarmuth, and unto 
Japhia king of Lachish, and unto 
Debirkingof Eglon, saying, •'Come 
up unto me, and help me that we 
may smite Gibeon : for it hath made 
peace with Joshua and the children 
of Israel. ° Therefore the five kings 
of the Amorites. .encamped before 
Gibeon and made war against it. 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 323 

Th' inhabitants to Joshua sent word 
or their great peril ; and he, when he heard, 
Marched up from Gilgal rapidly all night, 
Intending a surprise ere morning light : 
And coming on them suddenly they fled, 
Smitten with panic, and discomfited 
Were slain with a great slaughter. Up the way 
That goeth to Beth-horon hotly they 
Were chased ; thence going down, great hailstones 
slew 

More than the sword: the Israelites pursue 
And stay not— they by Joshua forbid 
To bring the five kings out where they were hid 
In a known cave ; not letting them do more 
Than close its mouth, until pursuit was o'er: 

"And the men of Gibeon sent unto them with a great slaughter at Gib- 

Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, say- eon, and chased them along the u'ay 

ing. Slack not thy hand from thy that goeth up to Beth-horon ["liouse 

servants; come up to us quickly and of caverns or holes"] and smote 

save us, and help us: for all the them to Azekah, and unto Mak- 

kmgs of the Amoriies that dwell in kedah. "And it came to pass as 

the mountains are gathered together they fled before Israel, and were in 

agamstus. .^-And the Lord said unto the going down to Beth-horen that 

Joshua, Fear them not: for I have the Lord cast down great siones 

dehvered them into thy hand, from heaven upon them unto Aze- 

9 Joshua therefore came unto them kah. and they died: they were 

suddenly, and went up from Gilgal more which died with hail-stones 

all night. loAnd the Lord discom- than they whom the children of Is- 

fited them before Israel, and slew rael slew with the sword. 



324 THE EVANGEL. 

So jealous of the time, that he would stay 
The sun and moon to lengthen out the day; 
Command the universe ; apostrophize 
The too great swiftness of the rolling skies ; 
And have the stars in their high courses fight, 
To make the victory complete ere night. 

*[^2Xhen spake Joshua to the Lord the sun stood still in the midst of 

in the day when the Lord delivered heaven, and hasted not to go down 

up the Amorites before the children about a whole day. i-*And there 

of Israel, and he said in the sight of was no day like that before it or af- 

Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon ter it, that the Lord hearkened untO' 

Gibeon ; and thou Moon, in the val- the voice of man : for the Lord 

ley of Ajalon. i^And the sun stood fought for Israel.) i^And Joshua 

still, and the moon was stayed, until returned, and all Israel with him, 

the people had avenged themselves unto the camp at Gilgal.J 

upon their enemies. Is not this i''But these five kings fled, and 

written in the book of Jasher ? (So hid themselves in a cave at Mak- 

* Beyond all question and the shadow of a doubt, the twelfth thirteenth 
fourteenth and fifteenth verses of the tenth chapter of Joshua form no 
part of the original history, and, if allowed to stand where they do, ought 
to be included in brackets. But it would be still better could they be lifted 
out of the way altogether, and placed in the margin or at the foot, where 
they clearly belong. The claim is not that the verses are spurious, only that 
they are misplaced. In reading, it is absolutely necessary to overleap 
them to make sense and preserve connection. Their borrowed and inde- 
pendent character is self-evident and self-declared. It is purely by acci- 
dent of position, and not by any fault of theirs, that they have come to be 
confounded with the text. 

Among others, the printers are to blame for this ; for not content with 
omitting brackets before the twelfth verse and after the fifteenth, which 
would have made all clear, they, very absurdly, but doubtless under di- 
rection, perpetrate the sign of a paragraph before the last named verse, 
with the effect of mutilating what goes before, and making nonsense of 
all that follows. This last, unsevered from the three preceeding verses, 
fulfills its design of distinctly marking and emphasizing the close of the 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 325 

Days may be long. Of one would you make two? 

You it without a miracle can do. 

Of the dear moments let there be no waste ! 

They're more and longer if your feet make haste. 

As in the Book of Jasher it is writ., 

^'The sun and moon stood still," what words 

more fit, 
Or more significant, or more sublime, 
To tell of answered prayer for needful time ? 

kedah. I'^And it was told to Joshua, your enemies, and smite the hind- 

..i*'And Joshua said, Roll great most of them ; suffer them not to 

stones upon the mouth ot the cave, enter into their cities ; for the Lord 

and set men by it for to keep them ; your God hath delivered them into 

i^And stay ye not, but pursue after your hands. .^oAnd when they had 

annotated extract here introduced — which there is every reason to believe, 
had, prior to this, done service in some connection apart from the history, 
under circumstances where it was necessary to indicate the occasion, but 
only compendiously, and in a general way. This would explain perfectly 
why a verse, belonging properly to the end of the campaign after many 
battles had been fought, should find place here at the outset, before the 
first battle was over. Commentators have remarked on the error loci in 
regard to this one verse but have failed to extend the observation to the 
other verses with which it is indissolubly joined. 

We acquit the ancient editor of any intention to deceive. Everything 
is open and above board, frank not fraudulent ; the whence and the where 
of the new matter, with the line of demarkation separating it from the 
old, are plainly noted, whereby it is seen at once to be a piece woven 
in another loom, by another hand, and in another age. An interlineation 
without a caret, it solves all difficulties to do the directest and simplest 
thing possible, that is, to believe it to be just what it professes to be, 
an annotated poetical extract taken from the "The Book of Jasher," 
^'The Book of the Upright," " The Book of Heroes," " The Book of 



326 THE EVANGEL. 

If nought of this in history is said, 
We shall find there prosaic fact instead ; 
True, but not truer is the last than first. 
Is literal truth than poetry's outburst. 

When of the flying foe not one remained, 
Save those whose swifter foot fenced cities gained^ 
All to the camp at Makkedah returned 

made an end of slaying them with a Joshua said unto the captains of the 
very great slaughter, . .that the rest men of war.. Come near, put your 
which remained of them entered in- feet upon the necks of them. .^'-And 
to fenced cities. 2iAnd all the peo- said, Fear not.. for thus shall the 
pie returned to camp to Joshua at Lord do to all your enemies against 
Makkedah in peace : . .22Then said whom ye fight. 26And afterward 
Joshua, Open the mouth of the Joshua smote them, and hanged 
cave, and bring out those five kings them on five trees :. .28And that day 
unto me out of the cave..2^And Joshua took Makkedah, . .Then pas- 
Praises and Hymns," which could not have been of earlier date than the 
time of David, because it contained David's lament over Saul and Jona- 
than (2 Sam. i : 17-12) ; that is to say, more than four hundred years 
after the Book of Joshua was written. Whether Joshua was the author of 
the Book bearing his name, or not, we know from Josh, vi : 26, that it was 
written, at least the first twelve chapters, while Rahab the harlot was still 
living, and so in his time. Besides it bears all the marks of a contem- 
porary history. 

We have in this tenth chapter, a rapid and graphic sketch of one cam- 
paign comprising several battles, and resulting in the first conquest of the 
southern half of Canaan. It begins with Joshua's leaving the camp at 
Gilgal on the Jordan, at the urgent summons of the beseiged Gibeonites^ 
and ends with his return there after the work of conquest was complete. 
Of the battles fought in quick succession, the first in the series was the 
decisive one of Beth-horen or Gibeon. This is given in detail, and forms 
the subject of the triumphal ode of which we have the fragment. There 
is a most animated description of the forced march, the going up from 
Gilgal all night, the surprise, the discomfiture, the precipitous flight 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 32/ 

In peace and joy for victory well earned. 

Then only Joshua commandment gave 

To bring the five kings forth from out the cave ; 

And when his captains on the neck of these 

Had put their feet, he hanged them on five trees. 

Losing no time though weary, Joshua 

Took Makkedah, and slew its king that day : 

And following up his marvellous success, 

His rapid march continuing to press, 

He Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron smote, 

sed unto Libnah and took it. .33Then remaining. ."■■^And from Lacliish he 

Horam king of Gezer came up to passed unto Egloa. .^uHebron.. 

lielp Lachish; and Joshua smote ^^Debir. .^otook them, and smote all 

him and his people until he left none the country of the hills and of the 

and hot pursuit of the panic-stricken enemy; the terrific hail-storm killmg 
more than the sword. It is at this point that the thread of the story is broken 
— to be taken up again at the sixteenth verse — by the sudden interjection of 
another account, extending from the twelfth to the fifteenth verses inclu- 
sive, which sends us back to Gilgal, not only before the completion 
of the campaign, but the conclusion of the present battle: and 
the unsuspecting reader, unapprised of the interpolation, would naturally 
suppose, that the Israelites had stopped short in the pursuit of the flying 
enemy to go back to their distant camp ; and had afterwards returned to 
renew the chase and the slaughter. One is tempted to wonder in that 
case what was the need of a preternatural prolongation of the day, so 
long as they had so accommodating a foe as to allow them to withdraw, 
and come back to complete the work of slaying them at their leisure. 

The document referred to is evidently of a mixed character. It consists 
of two parts. One part is a quotation. This is in form and fact poetical, not 
historical. It sings, it does not relate. It comes after the history, and is 
to be interpreted by the history. As that speaks of no apostrophe, or 
command addressed to the sun and moon, it is safe to assume that none 
was made ; for it is utterly inconceivable, that so stupendous an event, 



328 THE EVANGEL. 

Debir, and places neighboring and remote, 

All Kadesh-barnea to Gaza won, 

And all of Goshen unto Gibeon : 

These having been into subjection brought 

All at one time, — for God for Israel fought, — 

At the completion of the hard campaign. 

He to the camp at Gilgal came again. 

The king of Razor, when he heard these things, 
Sent embassies to all the northern kings, 

south, .-iifrom Kadesh-barnea even Joshua take at one time, because 

unto Gaza, and all the country of the Lord fought for Israel. ^sAnd 

Goshen, even unto Gibeon. 42And Joshua returned, and all Israel w^ith 

all these kings and their lands did him unto the camp to Gilgal. 

as the arrest during a whole day of the ordinary on-going of the material 
universe, should have taken place, and tliis contemporary narrative make, 
no mention of it. Then, besides this grand general miracle, there would 
need to have been wrought in that case many thousand particular ones, a 
separate miracle for each individual combatant, to enable him to bear the 
fatigue of this continuous marching and fighting during two whole days. 

Doubtless Joshua wished needful time, daylight or moonlight, to com- 
plete the victory, and the needful time was given : and the apostrophe is 
the poetical conception of that fact. Just that and nothing more. The 
figure is bold, but not bolder than our every day speech. We speak of 
time as being long, or short, or at a stand still ; of crowding two days 
into one, and the like. The miracle that Joshua performed was one that 
any brave and good man can imitate in the strength of Heaven. Unfor- 
tunately the more common miracle is a shortening of the day, rather than 
a lengthening. The poetical statement has this advantage over the 
prosaic, that it makes flame and blaze the familiar truth proclaimed in a 
thousand ways, that to the man awake, God's hero, a day is a miracle of 
length, is memorable and immortal as the days of eternity — the sun 
stands still, and the moon is stayed; the stars in their courses fight 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 329 

And they agreed their armies to unite, 
Make common cause in a determined fisrht 

o 

Against invading Israel — a grand 

And mighty host, as countless as the sand 

On the seashore, equipped and fortified 

With horses and with chariots beside. 

And when these kings were all together met 

At Merom's Waters, and their forces set 

In martial multitudinous array, 

Chap, xi: i. When Jabin king of gather at the waters of Merom, to 

Hazor had heard these things, he fight against Israel. eAnd the Lord 

sent to Jobab king of Madon [and said unto Joshua, Be not afraid be. 

other kings]. .^And they went, they cause of them : for to-morrow about 

and all their hosts with them, much this time will I deliver them all up 

people, even as the sand that is up- slain before Israel : thou shalt hough 

on the sea shore in multitude, with their horses, and burn their chariots 

horses and chariots very many, with fire. 'So Joshua came, and all 

5 And when all the kings were met the people of war with him, against 

together, they came and pitched to- them by the waters of Merom sud- 

against his enemies, they fight from Heaven : while on the other hand, to 
him who is asleep, the day is extinct ; he kills it, and digs a grave for it; 
he quenches the hght of both the sun and the moon, or keeps them below 
the horizon. 

The quotation, strictly speaking, ends with the words, "Is not this 
written in the Book of Jasher?" and what follows would seem to be 
nothing more than the prosaic comment of some unimaginative scholiast 
or editor, who knowing no sense but the literal, in his fear lest the Ark of 
God was in danger, hastened to stretch forth his hand to steady it, by a 
fortifymg endorsement of his own. Learned commentators, men of 
prose and fact, have, m like manner, thought it necessary to maintain, 
that the poet's sublime apostrophe to the mountains and hills of Gilboa, 
taken from the same Book of Jasher, was to be understood as a divine 



330 • THE EVANGEL. 

But not expecting battle on that day — 
Careless and confident that all was well — 
Came Joshua suddenly and on them fell, 
And smote, and chased them far, and did not 

tire ; 
Their horses hocked, their chariots burned with 

fire ; 
Put them to utter rout, and slew until 
The sword unsated left no more to kill. 

denly, and they fell upon them, and chased them, until thoy left 
8 And the Lord delivered them into them none remaining, . .%oughed 
the hand of Israel, who smote them their horses, and burned their char- 
command, that neither dew nor rain should ever fall thereon, which had 
had an uninterrupted miraculous fulfilment down to the present time. As 
well might it be supposed that there was an actual skipping of the moun- 
tains and hills in true ovine fashion, because in Psalm cxiv it is so stated. 
There may be an appearance of reverence in all this, but who does not 
see that to literalize poetry is to burlesque it ; and that in hugging too 
closely the letter we strangle the sense — in imitation of those fanatics of the 
brand and the sword who show their religious regard for men by killing them. 
Every thing conspires to discredit the fact of the miracle. Not only is 
contemporary history silent in respect to it, but subsequent likewise. 
Outside of this poetical fragment there is not to be found in all Scripture 
a single clear allusion to it, while in respect to the dividing of the Red 
Sea and of the Jordan, there were, we know, perpetual mention and cele- 
bration. Inspired pens never wearied of the theme. Since in view of 
interpositions far less stupendous all lyres were struck in rapturous and 
adoring acknowledgement, it defies belief, that an event so prodigious 
which must have been an astonishment to other worlds besides ours — to 
the whole inhabited universe in fact— should have been allowed to pass 
unnoticed and unrecorded, and to drop through long ages into virtual ob- 
livion. The credibility of the miracle has usually been assailed on the 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 33I 

But notwithstanding many an overthrow, 
Th' unyielding obstinate and hardened foe 
Continued to hold out, that so they might 
Exterminated be in hopeless fight — 
For only thus the land could be made clean 
Of foul idolatries, the foulest seen. 
Evil seducers waxing worse and worse. 
Each passing hour but multiplies the curse : 
Spreading, like the contagion of disease. 
The pestilence new victims waits to seize : 
From age to age descends th' infected blood, 
And the pollution of the rolling flood. 

iots with fire. .-"So Joshua took the Lord said unto Moses, and gave it 
whole land, according to all the for an inheritance unto Israel ac- 

physical side, but it is still more open to attack on the religious, as being a 
sheer waste of omnipotence, serving no purpose of piety, seeing it excited 
no movement of wonder or gratitude, any more than if it had never been 
wrought. 

Many ingenious attempts have been made to dispose of the astronomi- 
cal difficulties involved, but while the fact of the miracle itself rests upon 
no better foundation than a forced and unnatural interpretation of a scrap 
of poetry of doubtful character and origin, the consideration of this may, 
we think, be very properly postponed. Even the editorial amplification 
does not necessarily mean that the prolongation of the day was physical, 
although it must be admitted, the language being prose, that it is most 
natural to construe it in that sense. Conceding the point, it would be 
necessary in that case to choose between a contemporary author treating of 
things at first hand, and one who in the avowed character of an editor mere- 
ly quotes, and summarizes, and offers comment, hundreds of years after- 
wards. And if in the New Testament, where the reasons for guardmg the 



332 THE EVANGEL. 

If truth is holy, and if right is dear, 
A milHon Hve? are hardly worth a tear: 
Better a nation far at once should die, 
Than it should live to propagate a lie. 

So Joshua, the whole land overrun. 
Rested from war. The work was now begun 
Of just division to each tribe by lot : 
Nine tribes (the tribe of Levi counting not) 
And western half tribe of Manasseh, all 
Receive th' apportionments that to them fall. 
Manasseh's half tribe east, Reuben, and Gad, 
Beyond the Jordan ere this having had 

cording to their divisions by their Lord [and I] commanded you : ^Ye 

tribes. And the land rested from have not left your brethren these 

war. many days unto this day. -^And nowr 

Ch. xxii : i. Then Joshua called the Lord hath given rest unto your 

the Reubenites, and the Gadites, brethren, as he promised them : 

and the half tribe of Manasseh, therefore now return ye, and get you 

2 And said unto them. Ye have kept unto your tents, and unto the land 

all that Moses the servant of the of your possession, which Moses 

purity of the text would seem to be the strongest possible, interpolations 
have nevertheless been permitted — of which i John v : 7 is a conspicuous 
example, now quite generally rejected because not found in the oldest 
copies — it is surely not incompatible with proper reverence to suppose in 
the present case, that by a similar act of carelessness on the part of some 
ancient transcriber, a marginal comment has been mixed up with the in- 
spired original. Here, however, the foreign element while present never 
formed a part ; was present as a wedge not as a graft, having mere 
outside contact without union or pretense of union. 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 333 

Choice of inheritance. Their pledge made good, 
Aye by their brethren firmly having stood : 
Now Canaan won, with commendation earned, 
They to their Transjordanic homes returned. 
And when they came unto the farther side 
Of separating Jordan, there to bide, 
They built an altar great to see and high, 
Over against the land of Canaan, nigh 
The place of crossing of all Israel, 
As if it were their purpose to rebel 
Against the Lord their God, and to forsake 
His tabernacle worship, sacrifice 
Burnt offerings where He did not authorize : 
A dreadful scandal, and with peril fraught — 
So all the thousands of their brethren thought, 

the servant of the Lord gave you on when the children of Israel heard of 

the other side of the Jordan. ^But it, the whole congregation gathered 

take diligent heed to do the com- themselves at Shiloh to go up to 

mandment and the law, which [he] war against them. .i^And sent Phin- 

charged you, to love the Lord your eas, the son of Eleazor the priest, 

God, and to walk in ail his ways, i-*And with him ten princes. .i^And 

and to cleave unto him, and to serve they came unto the land of Gilead, 

him with all your heart and with all and spake with them, saying, i^What 

your soul. ^So Joshua blessed them trespass is that ye have committed, 

and sent them away, .i^" And when to turn away from following the 

they came unto the borders of Jor- Lord, in that ye have builded you 

dan [they] built them an altar by Jor- an altar ? . . i" Is the iniquity of Peor 

dan, a great altar to seeto..i2And too little for us?..20Did not Achan 



334 THE EVANGEL. 

Mindful of Achan, and their princes sent 

With threatening message to know what it meant. 

And they protested they did not intend 

What they supposed, but that their only end 

Was witness and not sacrifice ; to keep 

Their children mindful thus, and not let sleep 

The memory of holy rites, and all 

The law commanded, lest it should befall, 

That far removed, with Jordan them between, 

All these should be as though they had not been , 

Or lest their children should to theirs declare, 

** Ye in the Lord have no part and no share." 

And Israel served the Lord and walked His ways, 
All Joshua's, and all the elders' days 

commit a trespass in the accursed dren might speak unto our children, 

thing? aod that man perished not saying, What have ye to do with 

alone in his iniquity. 2iThen the the Lord God of Israel ? 25Por the 

children of Reuben, of Gad, and of Lord hath made Jordan a border 

the half tribe of Manasseh answered between us and you: ye have no 

and said, 22The Lord God of gods part in the Lord; so shall your chil- 

knoweth, and Israel shall know ; if dren make our children cease from 

it be in rebellion or if in transgres- fearing the Lord, se^herefore we 

sion against the Lord (save us not said, Let us build an altar [a pattern 

this day), 23That we have built us an of the altar of the Lord], not for 

altar, .to offer thereon burnt offering burnt offering, or for sacrifice, but 

or meat offering; let the Lord him- it is a witness between us, that the 

self require it, 2^And if we have not Lord is God [and so they called the 

rather done it for fear of this thing, altar Ed]. ^-'And the thing pleased 

saying. In time to come your chil- Israel and they blessed God. 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 335 

That out-lived Joshua, and who had known 
His works of judgment and of mercy shown. 
But afterwards, the voice of God's command — 
To make no league with dwellers in the land, 
But drive them out, their altars overthrow, 
All mention even of the names foreeo 
Of their false gods — they failing to obey, 
For sake of tribute suffering them to stay, 
The Lord was wroth : 

" I will not drive," He said, 
'' Them out before you, they shall stay instead — 
These snares and traps to vile idolatries — 
As scourges in your sides, thorns in your eyes ; 
Perpetual wars, and hard captivity 
To other nations shall your portion be." 

Ch. xxiv: 31. And Israel served cause this people hath transgressed 

the Lord all the days of Joshua, and my covenant, and have not heark- 

all the elders that outhved Joshua, ened unto my voice ; 211 also will 

and which had known all the works not henceforth drive out any from 

of the Lord, that he had done for before them of the nations which 

^^^^^^* Joshua left when he died. 

Judges ii : 11. And the children of Ch. iii : 5. And the children of 

Israel did evil in the sight of the Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, 

Lord,.. i3And they forsook the Lord Hittites, and Amorites, and Hiv- 

and served Baahm and Ashtaroth. ites, and Jebusites : «And they took 

"And the anger of the Lord was their daughters to be their wives, 

hot against Israel, and he delivered and gave their daughters to their 

them into the hands of the spoilers sons, and served ' their gods. . . 

that spoiled them. .20And said. Be- « Therefore the Lord, sold them in- 



336 THE EVANGEL. 

Hoping the punishment to intercept, 
The people lifted up their voice and wept, 
And sacrificed there to the Lord : but swerved 
Soon from His worship, and returning served 
Baalim and Ashtaroth, for which He gave 
(His gracious arm no more stretched out to save) 
Them up into the spoilers' hands for spoil, 
To be th' oppressed and wretched sons of toil. 

But when in their extremity of grief 
They cried. He raised them Judges for relief: 
First Othniel delivered them, when they 
Were to the king of Mesopotamia a prey. 
After this Ehud, smiting with bold hand 
The king of Moab, freed the captive land. 

to thehandsof Chushan-rishathaim, brought the present unto Eglon 

king of Mesopotamia: and they king of Moab, a very fat man,., 

served him eight years. sAnd when 2owho was sitting in a summer par- 

the children of Israel cried unto the lour, which he had for himself alone. 

Lord he raised up a deliverer, who And Ehud said, I have a message 

delivered them, even Othniel, the from God unto thee. .^lAnd he put 

son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger bro- forth his left hand, and took the 

ther. .iiAnd the land had rest forty dagger from his thigh, and thrust it 

years; and Othniel died. into his belly. .22Then went forth 

isEhud, a Benjamite, a man left- and locked the doors. .^^And escap-^ 

handed.. "Made him a dagger which edunto Seirath. .2TAnd blew a trum- 

had two edges, of a cubit length; pet i|| the mountain at Ephraim, and 

and he did gird it under his raiment the children of Israel, .-^went down 

upon his right thigh. I'And he after him, and took the fords of Jor^ 



JOURNEY : BEYOND TPIE JORDAN. 337 

Then Shamgar the Philistines overthrew, 
He who six hundred with an ox-goad slew. 

Then Deborah, the prophetess, awoke 
Resistance to the Canaanitish yoke — 
Called Barak out of Kedesh-naphtali, 
And routed Sisera and made him fly — 
Although he could, to aid his numerous host, 
Nine hundred chariots of iron boast. 

They fought from heaven, the stars against them. 

fought ; 
The aidirig elements against them brought 
Their stormy might, and in their faces drove 
The blinding tempest ; also with them strove 

dan toward Moab, and suffered not Hazor ; the captain of whose host 

a man to pass over. 29And they was Sisera. .^ And he had nine hun- 

slew of Moab about ten thousand dred chariots of iron,.. and twenty 

men. ^ogo Moab was subdued., years he mightily oppressed Israel. 

And the land had rest for four-score * And Deborah, a prophetess, the 

years. ^lAnd after him was Sham- wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel 

gar, the son of Anath, which slew of at that time..6She sent and called 

the Phihstines six hundred men with Barak, out of Kedesh-napthali and 

an ox-goad: and he also delivered said unto him. Hath not the Lord 

Israel. God commanded saying. Go and 

Ch. iv: I. And the children of draw toward Mount Tabor, and 

Israel again did evil. .2And the Lord take with thee ten thousand men of 

sold them into the hands of Jabin the children of Naphtali and of 

king of Canaan, that reigned in Zebulun? ^And I will draw unto- 



338 THE EVANGEL. 

The rising River, swollen with the rain, 
A quagmire making of the flooded plain ; 
The horses' hoofs were broken by the stress 
Of their wild plungings ; chariots no less 
O'erturned ; and those, who from them leapt, 
Were by the rushing Kishon seaward swept ; 
Whom spared the sword the torrent bore away, 
None left to tell the story of that day. 

Howbeit, Sisera alighting fled 

On foot, and to the tent of Jael sped ; 

Who going out to meet him, spake : " My lord, 

Turn in, fear not, I shelter will afford.'.' 

And when he had come in, he said, " Give me 

To drink a little water." And when she 

thee to the river Kishon Sisera, the edge of the sword before Barak; 

the captain of Jabin's army with so that Sisera hghted down off his 

his chariots and his multitude; chariot and fled away on his feet. . 

and I will deliver him into thine I'To the tent of Jael the wife of 

hand..43And Sisera gathered to- Heber the Kenite. .if^And Jael went 

gether all his chariots, and all his out to meet him, and said, Turn 

people. .i^And Deborah said unto in, my lord, turn into me, fear not. 

Barak, Up ; for this is the day in And when he had turned in unto her 

which the Lord hath delivered Sis- into the tent, she covered him with 

era into thine hand. .So Barak went a mantle. i9And he said unto her, 

down from Mount Tabor and ten Give me, I pray thee, a little watei 

thousand men after him. i^And the to drink ; for I am thirsty. And she 

Lord discomfited Sisera, and all opened a bottle of milk, and gave 

his chariots, and all his hosts, with him drink, and covered him. .2iThen 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 339 

Had given him milk, and covered him, he slept : 
With nail and hammer then she softly crept, 
And smiting nailed his temples to the ground — 
Where passing in pursuit him Barak found. 

The mother through her lattice breathes the 
sigh : 
*' Why tarries thus his chariot ? Ah, why 
So long in coming, and so slow the wheels? " 

With self-deceiving words she care conceals : 

*^ Have they not sped ? Are they not on the way ? 

Have they divided not ere this the prey? 

To each a damsel, one or more, and fair? 

To Sisera a richer, nobler share — 

she took a nail of the tent, and took Ch. v: i. Then sang Deborah 
a hammer mto her hand, and smote and Barak, saying, spraise ye the 
the nail into his temples, and fasten- Lord for the avenging of Israel. . 
ed it into the ground : for he was ^cphey fought from heaven ; the 
fast asleep and v^^eary. So he died, stars in their courses fought against 
22And behold as Barak pursued Sis- Sisera. siThe river of Kishon swept 
era, Jael came out to meet him, and them away, that ancient river., 
said unto him. Come, and I will 22Xhen were the horse hoofs broken 
shew thee the man whom thou seek- by means of the prancings. .2-iBles- 
€St. And when he came into the sed above women shall Jael the wife 
tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and of Heber the Kenite be. .28The mo- 
the nail was in his temples. 2350 ther of Sisera looked out at a win- 
God subdued on that day Jabin the dow, and cried through the lattice, 
king of Canaan before Israel. Why tarry the wheels of his chariot ? 



340 THE EVANGEL. 

A prey of needlework of cost and toll 

Meet for the necks of them that take the spoil ? '^ 

The king and power of Canaan thus destroyed^ 
The land a rest of forty years enjoyed. 
'Twas then that Gideon, in unequal fight, 
Beyond the Jordan drove the Midianite : 
Jephthah of Gilead 'gainst Ammon fought, 
And a great victory for Israel wrought : 
Samson, with the Philistines waging strife, 
Slew in his death more than he slew in life : 
Last of the Judges, Samuel the good 
Made Saul their king, for so the people would. 



The Ark of God at Shiloh, thence was brought 
Out from behind the veil, when Israel fought 

29Her wise ladies answered her, Ch. vi-xvi. And the children of 

yea, she returned answer to herself, Israel did evil : and the Lord deliv- 

soRave they not sped? have they ered them into the hand ot Midian 

not divided the prey ; to every man seven years, etc. 

a damsel or two ; to Sisera a prey of i Sam. iv : 3. And when the peo- 

divers colours of needlework, meet pie were come into the camp, the 

for the necks of them that take the elders of Israel said, Wherefore 

spoils? sigo let all thine enemies hath the Lord smitten us to-day be- 

perish, O Lord: but let them that fore the PhiUstines ? Let us fetch 

love him be as the sun when he go- the ark of the covenant of the Lord 

eth forth in his might. And the land of hosts which dwelleth between the 

had rest forty years. cherubim, out of Shiloh unto us, it 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 34I 

With the Philistines, and disaster met. 

The captured Shrine they took to Ashdod, set 

It by their own god Dagon : morning found 

This fallen, lying prone upon the ground. 

The second time, the idol brake — bereft 

Of head and hands nought but the stump was left. 

And the Lord's hand, because of it, was sore 

On all the cities where the Ark they bore : 

So deadly the destruction, Ekron said, 

*' Let it go back again, send it away 

To its own place ! why bring it us to slay ? 

In a new cart, with offerings, they sent 

It drawn by two milch kine, that lowing went — 

may save us out of the hand of our off upon the threshold ; only the 

enemies. . , /">And the Philistines stump was left to them. ^Xhe hand 

fought and Israel was smitten., of the Lord was heavy upon them of 

^lAnd the ark of God was taken. . . Ashdod, and he destroyed them, 

Ch. v: I. And the Philistines and smote them with emerods.. 

took the ark of God and brought it ■? And the men of Ashdod said the 

unto Ashdod, into the house of Da- ark of the Lord shall not abide with 

gon, and set it by Dagon, ^And us.. «And they a'sked the lords of the 

when they arose early on the mor- Philistines, What shall we do with 

TOW, behold, Dagon was fallen upon it? And they said. Let it be carried 

his face before the ark of the Lord, about unto Gath. .^And the hand of 

and they set him in his place again, the Lord was against the city with a 

. .40n the morrow morning Dagon very great destruction. .loTherefore 

was fallen on his face, .and his head, they sent it to Ekron, and the Ek- 

and the palms of his hands were cut ronites cried out, saying to the 



342 THE EVANGEL. 

As mindful of their calves, and fret 
Of th' unaccustomed yoke — on straightway yet 
Unled to Beth-shemish, whereby they knew 
'Twas not to chance the fatal scourge was due. 

The men of Beth-shemish the two cows took 
For a burnt offering : but dared to look 
Into the sacred Ark, so broke the law, 
And threw themselves into the open maw 
Of penal death, wide gaping to devour — 
Such consequence has sin down to this hour. 
Because abuse of trust brought punishment, 
They messengers to Kirjath-jearim sent, 

lords of the Philistines, Send it offering, in a coffer by the side 
away, and let it go again to its own thereof; and send it away. .^And see 
place, that it slay us not. if it goeth up by the way of his own 
Ch. vi: I And the ark was in coast to Beth-shemesh, then he hath 
the country of the Philistines seven done unto us this great evil ; but if 
months.. 2And they said to the not, then we shall know that it is 
priests and diviners, What shall we not his hand that smote us ; it was 
do to the ark of the Lord?..3And a chance that happened to us. 
they said. If ye send it away, send i^And the men did so ; and took the 
it not empty. .''Make a new cart, two milch kine, and tied them ta 
and take two milch kine, on which the cart, and shut up their calves at 
there hath come no yoke, and tie home..i2And the kine took the 
the kine to the cart, and bring the straight way to the way of Beth-she- 
calves home from them. .^And take mesh, lowing as they went, and turn- 
the ark of the Lord, and lay it upon ed not aside to the right hand or to 
the cart, and put the jewels of gold, the left. .i^And they of Beth-shemesh 
which ye return him for a trespass were reaping their wheat harvest in 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 343 

And said, '' Come, fetch it ! " filled with dastard 
fears : 

And Kirjath-jearim kept it twenty years. 

Meanwhile the Tabernacle— made to mourn 
Maimed rites of worship, standing there forlorn, 
Deprived of Deity, that glory dark 
Which once flashed splendor o'er the sacred Ark- 
Was like a casket when the jewel's gone. 
Or soul from which God's presence is withdrawn. 



'TWAS in the early, dark, and troubled days 
When Judges ruled, and danger filled the ways, 

the valky. and they saw the ark and all the house of Israel lamented 
rejoiced to see it. .i^And they clave after the Lord 

the wood of the cart, and offered Judges v : 6. In the daysof Shan- 

the kine a burnt offering unto the gar the son of Anath, in the days of 

Lord i9Because they looked into Jael, the highways were unoccupied 

the ark of the Lord, he smote them and the travellers walked through 

..-lAnd they sent messengers to by-ways. "^ 

Kirjath-jearim, saying. The Philis- Ruth i : i. Now it came to pass 

tmes have brought again the ark of in the days when the judges ruled 

the Lord ; come ye down and fetch that there was a famine in the land.' 

It up to you. And a certain man of Bethlehem- 

^i^. VII : I. And the men of Kir- judah went to sojourn in the country 

jath-jeanm came, and brought it in- of Moab, he. and his wife and his 

to the house of Abinadab in the two sons. ^And the name of the 

hil . and sanctified Eleazar his son man was EHmelech, and of his wife 

tokeep,t..2And the ark abode in Naomi, and of his two sons Mah- 

Kirjath-jeanm twenty years: and Ion and Chillon. ^And Elimelech 



344 THE EVANGEL. 

Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and two sons — 
*Tis on this wise the sacred story runs — 
Driven by famine, starving there unfed 
Amid the cornfields of the *' House of Bread," 
Leaving their native Bethlehem behind, 
Compelled elsewhere the means of life to find, 
To MOAB came, whose hills and valleys green 
Across the Dead Sea gulf might thence be seen. 

The father dying, both the sons them chose 
Wives of the women of the land. Of those 
One was named Orpah, and the other Ruth. 
After ten years the sons too died. In truth 
'Twas a sad sight that threefold widowhood, 
Naomi sitting in her solitude, 
So lorn, so stricken, utterly bereft. 
Empty who once was full, with nothing left 

Naomi's husband died ; and she in-law that she might return, for she 

was left and her two sons. ^And had heard that the Lord had visited 

they took them wives of the women his people in giving them bread, 

of Moab : the name of the one was "^ Wherefore she went forth out of 

Orpah, and the name of the other the place where she was, and her 

Ruth, and they dwelled there about two daughters in law with her; and 

ten years. ^And Mahlon and Chi- they went on the way to return to 

Ion died ; and the woman was left the land of Judah. sAnd Naomi 

of her two sons and her husband, said unto her two daughters in law, 

6 Then she arose with her daughters- Go, return each to her mother's 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 345 

Of all that wealth of love that made her glad 
Ev'n then when stript of home and all she had. 

Stranger among strangers longer why sojourn ? 

She filled with home-sick longings to return, 

Rose to depart ; and when her daughters both, 

In their devotion were to leave her loath, 

She tenderly persuaded them to go 

Each to her mother's house : '' 'Twere better so," 

She said, and kissed them, and with forehead 

bowed 
Upon each other's neck they wept aloud : 
Again she urged, again aloud they wept — 
Orpah gave way, but Ruth her purpose kept: 

** Entreat me not to leave thee, to return 
From following thee : thou canst not change my 
stern 

house: the Lord deal kindly with ters: why will ye go with me? are 

you, as ye have dealt with the dead, thereyetany more sons in my womb, 

and with me. ^The Lord grant that that they may be your husbands ? 

ye may find rest, each of you in the i^Xurn again, my daughters, go 

house of her husband. Then she your way ; for I am too old to have 

kissed them ; and they lifted up a husband. If I should say, I have 

their voice, and wept, ^"And they hope, if I should have a husband 

said unto her, Surely we will return also to night, and should also bear 

with thee unto thy people. "And sons ; i^Would ye tarry for them till 

Naomi said, Turn again, my daugh- they were grown ? would ye stay for 



34^ THE EVANGEL. 

Fixed purpose. Where thou goest I will go : . 
And where thou lodgest I will lodge : ev'n so 
Thy people shall be mine ; thy God my God : 
There where thou diest I will die — same sod 
Shall cover both. The Lord do so to me 
And more if aught but death part me and thee.*^ 

Finding her steadfast, nothing more she said — 
So they unsundered on their journey sped 
Until they came to Bethlehem, and all 
Exclaimed " Is this Naomi?" 

" Ah ! me call 
No more Naomi, * Pleasant ' I am not ; 
But call me Mara, ' Bitter' is my lot." 
Nay, but Naomi, bitter is the best ; 
No woman living is more truly blest. 
O loving heart, eternal is thy fame, 
Sweet is the fragrance that attends thy name. 

them from having husbands? nay, thou after thy sister-in-law. i^And 

my daughters ; for it grieveth me Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave 

much for your sakes that the hand thee, or to return from following af- 

of the Lord is gone out against me. ter thee : for whither thou goest, I 

"And they lifted up their voice, and will go ; and where thou lodgest, I 

wept again : and Orpah kissed her will lodge : thy people shall be my 

mother-in-law ; but Ruth clave unto people, and thy God my God : 

her. i^And she said. Behold, thy i^Where thou diest, will I die, and 

sister-in-law is gone back unto her there will I be buried : the Lord do 

people, and unto her gods: return so to me, and more also, if aught but 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 347 

Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, 
And the maternal font of flowing Hfe 
To Obed, Jesse, and, O honored one! 
To David, and to JESUS, David's Son. 

Still shining down through ages hoary, 

A halo of unfading glory 

Surrounds the name of Ruth in story. 

She to Naomi still would cling. 
Nor would return from following, 
Coming to trust beneath the wing 

Of Israel's God, and so became 
Mother of kings of mighty name, 
And One of more exalted fame, 

Ev'n Him, upon whose radiant brow 
The crown of heaven and earth sits now, 
And at whose feet Archangels bow. 



death part thee and me. iswhen come to Beth-lehem, that all the 

she saw that she was steadfastly city was moved about them, and 

minded to go with her, then she left they said, Is this Naomi ? 2oAnd 

speaking unto her. i^So they two she said unto them, Call me not 

went until they came to Beth-lehem. Naomi [Pleasant], call me Mara 

And it came to pass when they were [Bitter]: for the Almighty hath 



348 



THE EVANGEL 



What recompense did she receive, 
Who home and kindred chose to leave, 
That to God's people she might cleave ! 

David at Hebron, reigned in place of Saul, 
Acknowledged first by Judah, then by all; 
Stronger and stronger waxing, while the power 
And house of Saul grew weaker hour by hour: 



dealt very bitterly with me. 211 
went out full, and the Lord hath 
brought me home again empty : 
why then, call ye me Naomi, seeing 
the Lord hath testified against me, 
and the Almighty hath afflicted me ? 
iiSam. ii: 4. And the men of 
Judah came, and there they anoint- 
ed David king over Judah,. *But 
Abner the son of Ner, captain of 
Saul's host, took Ish-bosheth the 
son of Saul, and brought him over 
toMahanaim; ^And made him king 
over Gilead, and all Israel.. i"He 
was forty years old when he began 
to reign, and reigned two years.. 
i2And Abner the son of Ner, and 
the servants of Ish-bosheth went out 
from Mahanaim to Gibeon. i^And 
Joab the son of Zeruiah, and the 
servants of David went out, and met 
together by the pool of Gibeon.. 
^"And there was a very sore battle 
that day ; and Abner was beaten, 
and the men of Israel, before the 
servants of David. 



Ch. iii : i. Now there was long 
war between the house of Saul and 
the house of David ; but David 
waxed stronger and stronger, and 
the house of Saul weaker and weak- 
er. 

Ch. iv : 5. And the sons of Rim- 
mon the Beerothite, Rechab and 
Baanah, came about the heat of the 
day to the house of Ish-bosheth, 
who lay on a bed at noon.. ''And 
they smote him, and slew him, and 
beheaded him and took his head, 
and gat them away through the 
plain all night. ^And brought the 
head unto David to Hebron.. ^And 
David said unto them. As the Lord 
liveth, who hath redeemed my soul 
out of all adversity, ^"When one 
told me, saying. Behold, Saul is 
dead, thinking to have brought good 
tidings, I took hold of him and slew 
him in Ziklag, . .^How much more, 
when wicked men have slain a right- 
eous person in his own house upon 
his bed ? . . i^And David commanded 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 349 

Crowned king at length o'er Israel at the death 
Of poor, abandoned, butchered Ish-bosheth. 

The rocky citadel of Jebus (high, 
Impregnable, and saucy to defy 
Assault or capture, hurling words of shame — 
" Except thou take from us the blind and lame 
Thou canst not come in hither " — trusting these 
Were able to repel attack with ease) 
David yet took, and dwelt there in the fort, 
Made it his capital, there removed his court — 
City of David, thenceforth ; ere this named 
Mount Zion ; then Jerusalem, far-famed ; 
The Holy City, mightiest of boasts. 
After th' enshrinement of the Lord of Hosts, 
And bringing of the Ark of Power and Grace, 
Into the new pavilion's Holy Place. 

his young men and they slew them, saying, Except thou take away the 

Ch. V : 3. So all the elders of blind and the lame, thou shalt not 

Israel came to the king to Hebron ; come in hither. TNeygj-ti^eless, Da- 

..and they anointed David king vid took the strong hold of Zion : 

over Israel. ^David was thirty years the same is the city of David. ^So 

old when he began to reign ; and he David dwelt in the fort and called it 

reigned forty years. .^And the king the city of David, 

and his men went to Jerusalem un- Ch. vi : 2. And David arose, and 

to the Jebusites, the inhabitants of went with all the people that were 

the land: which spake unto David, with him from Baale [i. e. Kirjath- 



350 



THE EVANGEL. 



According as he swore: '' I will not come 

Into the tabernacle of my home, 

Nor sleep nor slumber shall my eyelids bind, 

Until a Dwelling for the Lord I find. 

At Ephratah we heard of it, and sought : • 

It from the fields of Kirjath-jearim brought. 

Arise, O Lord, into thy rest, at length. 

Thou, and the Ark of Thy immortal Strength ! 

" Lift up your heads, ye ancient Jebus gates ! 
Rusty with age, ye stiff portcullis grates ! 



jearim] of Judah, to bring up from 
thence the ark of God, whose name 
is called by the name of the I^ord of 
hosts, that dwelleth between the 
cherubims. J^So David and all the 
house of Israel brought up the ark 
of the Lord with shouting and with 
the sound of the trumpet. 

Ch. vii : 2. The king said unto 
Nathan the prophet, See now, I 
dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark 
of the Lord dwelleth within curtains. 
3 And Nathan said, Go, do all that 
is in thine heart ; for the Lord is with 
thee. 4And it came to pass that 
night, that the word of the Lord 
came imto Nathan, saying, ''Go and 
tell thy servant David, Thus saith 
the Lord, Shalt thou build me a 
house for me to dwell in? ''Where- 
as I have not dwelt in any house 
since the time that I brought up the 



children of Israel out of Egypt, even 
to this day, but have walked in a 
tent and in a tabernacle. .i^When 
thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt 
sleep with thy fathers, I will set up 
thy seed after thee. .i^He shall build 
an house for my name. 

Ps. cxxxii : i. Lord remember 
David.. 2How he sware unto the 
Lord. .^Surely, I will not come into 
the tabernacle of my house, nor go 
up into my bed ; ^I will not give 
sleep to mine eyes, nor slumber to 
mme eyelids, ^Until I find out a place 
for the Lord, a habitation for the 
mighty God of Jacob. ^Lo, we 
heard of it at Ephratah : we found 
it in the fields of the wood. 'We 
will go into his tabernacle: we 
will worship at his footstool. ^Arise, 
O Lord, into thy rest ; thou, and the 
ark of thy strength. 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 351 

Ye everlasting doors uplifted be ! 
The King of Glory shall come in to thee." 
Who is this King of Glory ? warders cry — 
** The Lord the strong in battle," these reply. 

Who shall ascend into the Holy Place, 
And Mountain of Jehovah, and find grace? 
The clean of hands and pure of heart: he who 
Has not been lifted up, nor sworn untrue: 
Who walks uprightly, and who speaks no lie : 
Abhors all wrong, deceit and calumny; 
Esteeming not the vile, but holding dear 
And honorable those Jehovah fear: 
Who swears to his own hurt, and keeps his word — 
He shall receive the blessins; of the Lord. 



Not cedarn House, but temporary Tent — 
Like that in which Jehovah walked and went 

Ps. xxiv : 3. Who shall ascend everlasting doors ; and the King of 

into the hill of the Lord ? or who glory shall come in. sWho is this 

shall stand in his holy place ? ^He King of glory? The Lord strong 

that hath clean hands, and a pure and mighty. 

heart ; who hath not hfted up his i Kings viii : 3. And all the elders 

soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceit- of Israel came and the priests took 

fully. sHe shall receive the blessing up the ark of the Lord..-'^And 

from the Lord. .''Lift up your heads, king Solomon and- all the congrega- 
O ye gates ; and be ye lifted up, ye • tion of Israel were with him before 



352 THE EVANGEL. 

With marching Israel — did David raise ; 
That other work forbidden in his days : 

'* A House thou shalt not build Me, but thy son 
The wise, unwarlike, peaceful Solomon." 

And when the Lord performed this work as well^ 

He promised Solomon that He would dwell 

In the thick darkness of the Holiest, 

The Oracle, would there abide and rest 

In a fixed place (nomadic now no more. 

The Ark's long wanderings forever o'er,) 

Between the wings of cherubim that hover 

Over the Mercy-Seat, and meeting cover 

The Sacred Chest and Shrine, wherein lay hid 

The granite blocks of Sinai. When the lid 

Was lifted for another, these anew 

With awe one moment seen, were shut from view 

the ark..6And the priests brought of the Lord. i^So that the priests 
in the ark unto his place into the could not stand to minister because 
oracle of the house, to the most holy of the cloud : for the glory of the- 
place, even under the wings of the LordhadfiUed the house of the Lord, 
cherubim. .9There was nothing in i^Then spake Solomon, The Lord 
the ark, save the two tables of stone, said that he would dwell in the thick 
which Moses put there at Horeb. . . darkness. ^H have surely built thee 
i"And it came to pass, when the a house to dwell in, a settled place- 
priests were come out of the holy to abide in forever. .^^And it was in 
place, that the cloud filled the house the heart of David my father to- 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 355 

In closed Propitiatory dark beneath — 

The sword of vengeance hidden in its sheath* — 

While present Deity from either place 

The Throne of Justice and the Throne of Grace^ 

Proclaimed forgiveness with consenting voice, 

And bade a lost and ruined world rejoice. 

*' Arise, O Lord, once more into Thy rest ! 
Splendor of God ! break forth, be manifest ! " 

The Glory came — the house was filled with light,. 
To human eyes insufferably bright. 

" But will in very deed God dwell with men ? 
The heaven of heavens cannot Him hold, how then 
• This House that I have built? Upon this Place 
Where Thou hast put Thy name, O God of Grace,. 
Thy wakeful eyes be open night and day. 
And hear Thy servants when they humbly pray." 

build a house. .i^And the Lord said heavens cannot contain thee : how- 
to David, Thou didst well that it much less this house that I have 
was in thy heart. ^^Nevertheless builded. 2sYet have thou respect 
thou shalt not build the house, but unto the prayer of thy servant, which 
thy son. .26And now, O, God of Is- he prayeth before thee to day: 
rael, let thy word, I pray thee, be 29Xhat thine eyes may be open to- 
verified, which thou spakest unto ward this house night and day, even 
thy servant David, my father. 27But toward the place of which thou hast 
will God indeed dwell on the earth ? said. My name shall be there : that 
behold, the heaven and heaven of thou mayest hearken unto the pray- 

* " Tanquam gladium in vagina reconditum." — Cicero. 



354 THE EVx\NGEL. 

Lo, everywhere through boundless space 
Thy being spreads ; yet, if Thou Avilt, 

Thou, Lord, canst enter here, and grace 
The house our feeble hands have built. 

O vast, O ever-living Mind ! 

A thousand years are nought to Thee — 
Yet Thou, the Eternal One, dost find 

In moments room enough to be. 

Most sacred, solemn, and sublime, 
The favored spot and season, when 

Thou, gathered from all space and time, 
Dost condescend to dwell with men. 

The covering heavens sweet influence shed; 

And souls are glad like those above ; 
While softly floats o'er every head 

The streaming banner of Thy love. 

er which thy servant shall make unto plague of his heart, and spread 

this place. .38What prayer and sup- forth his hands toward this house: 

plication soever be made by any ^9 Then hear thou in heaven thy 

man, or by all thy people Israel, dwelling-place, and forgive, and do, 

which shall know every man the and give to every man according to 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 355 

O, it is comely and thrice fit 

That praise should be our one employ ; 
While at this board of grace we sit, 

Clothed in the radiant vest of joy. 

Be harps to hallelujahs set ! 

And voices tuned to hymns of laud, 
And soaring harmonies ; and let 

The diapason close in God ! 

Sad to relate, the man for wisdom famed 
Beyond all kings, himself defiled and shamed 
By whoredoms with strange women, clave to these 
Silly idolaters that turned with ease 
Away to other gods his darkened mind, 
And doting foolish heart depraved and blind. 
• He worshiped Ashtoreth : with hateful rites 
Milcom, the scandal of the Ammonites ; 



his ways, whose heart thou knowest : strange women. .2And he clave unto 

for thou, even thou only, knowest these in love. ^And he had seven 

the hearts of all the children of men. hundred wives, prmcesses, and three 

Ch. X : 23. So king Solomon ex- hundred concubines :. .•*It came to 

ceeded all the kings of the earth for pass when he was old, that his wives 

riches and for wisdom. turned away his heart after other 

Ch. xi: I. But he loved many gods. .^For he went after Ashtoreth 



356 THE EVANGEL. 

A high place built for Chemosh, the offence 
Of Moab: built for Molech — to incense 
Jehovah more, insult Him and contemn — 
Built in the hill before Jerusalem. 

Who sinks to folly is no longer wise : 
He's justly blind who puts out his own eyes. 
How few, alas, prosperity can bear! 
Power, riches, knowledge, are to most a snare — ► 
Power makes men cruel, emperor and priest — 
Beneath superior wisdom sleeps the beast. 
O bright beginning ! miserable end ! 
To what a depth of shame did he descend ! 

the goddess of the Zidonians, and hand against the king. .29 Jeroboam 
after Milcom the abomination of the had clad himself with a new gar- 
Ammonites. .''And built ahigh place ment, and the prophet Ahijah found 
for Chemosh, the abomination of him in the way ; and they two were 
Moab, in the hill that is before Je- alone in the field : and Ahijah caught 
rusalem, and for Molech, the abom- the new garment that was on him and 
inationof Amnion. .i^Wherefore the rent it in twelve pieces: ^'And he 
Lordsaid unto Solomon, Forasmuch said to Jeroboam, Take thee ter 
as this is done of thee. .1 will surely pieces : for thus saith the Lord, the 
rend the kingdom from thee, and God of Israel, Behold, I will rend 
will give it to thy servant. i2]siot- the kingdom out of the hand of Sol- 
withstanding in thy days will I not omon, and will give ten tribes to 
do it, for David thy father's sake: thee. ^^But he shall have one tribe 
but I will rend it out of the hand of for my servant David's sake, and 
thy son. .26And Jeroboam the son of for Jerusalem's sake, the city which 
Nebat, an Ephrathite of Zereda.Sol- I have chosen. .-"sAnd Solomon reign- 
omon's servant, even he lifted his ed forty years, . .^^And slept with his 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 357 

Truly, of all the fools beneath the sun, 
The greatest fool was wisest Solomon. 

The rotten fabric of the tottering State, 
Fell with loud ruin at the touch of fate. 
Then when his son and heir began to reign — 
Ten tribes revolting, rending it in twain, 
Two hostile parts of a divided throne, 
HencefQrth as Israel and Judah known. 

The kingdom of seceding Israel, 
P'or five times fifty years ran parallel 
With Judah. Jeroboam first, the son 
Of Nebat, reigned : who, lest they should be won 



fathers ; and Rehoboam his son saying, My father made your yoke 

reigned in his stead, heavy, and I will add to your yoke : 

Ch. xii: I. And all Israel were he chastised you with whips, I will 

come to Shechem to make Reho- chastise you with scorpions. .i^The 

boam king..'^And when Jeroboam people answered the king, saying, 

the son of Nebat, who was yet in What portion have we in David ?. . 

Egypt, heard of it (for he was fled i^So Israel rebelled against the 

from the presence of king Solomon house of David unto this day. .20And 

-and dwelt in Egypt), ^That they made Jeroboam king over all Israel : 

sent and called him. And Jeroboam there was none that followed the 

and all the congregation of Israel house of David, but the tribe of 

came, and spake unto Rehoboam, Judah only..26And Jeroboam said 

-saying, ^Thy father made our yoke in his heart, Now shall the kingdom 

grievous: now therefore make thou return to the house of David: 2Tif 

It lighter. .i-*And he spake to them this people go up to do sacrifice in 

after the counsel of the young men, the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, 



358 THE EVANGEL. 

Back to the house of David did they still 
Go to Jerusalem to worship, plotting ill, 
Like as at Sinai, made two calves of gold, 
And to th' assembled people said, 

'' Behold 
Thy gods, O Israel, which whilom brought 
Thee out of Egypt, and deliverance wrought.' 

And one he set in Bethel, one in Dan — 
A worldly, politic, and evil plan — 
And this became a sin. The people went 
To these to worship : unity twice rent 
By these bad means. Apostate Israel, 
All save a remnant of seven thousand, fell 
Into idolatry, and bowed the knee 
To Baal, when Elijah — made to flee 



..and they shall kill me, and go 32And sacrificed unto the calves he 

again to Rehoboam king of Judah. had made. 

28Whereupon the king took counsel, Ch. xix: 14. And Elijah said, 

and made two calves of gold, and The children of Israel have forsak- 

said unto them. It is too much for en thy covenant, thrown down thine 

you to go up to Jerusalem : behold altars, and slain thy prophets with 

thy gods, O Israel, which brought the sword : and I, even I only, am 

thee up out of Egypt. 29And he set left ; and they seek my life, to take 

the one in Bethel, and the other in it away. i^Go, anoint Hazael to be 

Dan, soAnd this became a sin : for king over Syria; i^and anoint Jehu 

the people went there to worship., king over Israel; and Elisha pro- 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 359 

From Ahab, sunk in heart, of hope bereft — 
Had rashly said that none but he was left. 

Ahab at Ramoth-GILEAD was slain : 
And Jehu after him began to reign — 
First having executed vengeance fell 
Upon the guilty head of Jezebel ; 
Thrown from her palace window o'er the wall, 
Her body, crushed and mangled by the fall, 
Was trodden down beneath the horses' feet 
Of Jehu driving fast ; and dogs did eat 
And gnaw her bones, till nought of her was left, 
Save skull and feet and hands of flesh bereft. 

phet in thy room. I'Him that es- 11 Kings ix : 30. And when Jehu 

capeth the sword of Hazael shall was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard 

Jehu slay..i='Yet I have left me of it ; and she painted her face, and 

seven thousand in Israel, which have tired her head, and looked out at a 

not bowed the knee unto Baal., window. .^^And he said. Throw her 

Ch. xxii : 29. So Ahab the king down. So they threw her down; 

of Israel,, .went up to Ramoth- and some of her blood was sprinkled 

gilead. .3iAnd a man drew a bow on the wall, and on the horses ; and 

at a venture, and smote the king he trode her under foot. .s^And they 

of Israel between the joints of went to bury her : but they found 

the harness. .35And the battle in- no more of her than the skull, and 

creased that day. .And the king was the feet, and thepalmsof her hands, 

stayed up in his chariot against the . .^eAnd he said. This is the word of 

Syrians, and died at even ; and the the Lord which he spake by his ser- 

blood ran out of the wound into the vant Elijah the Tishbite, saying. In 

midst of the chariot, s-go the king the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat 

died, and was brought to Samaria. the flesh of Jezebel : 37And her car- 



360 THE EVANGEL. 

Ev'n as Elijah said, " As offal, dung 
Upon the field, her carcass shall be flung." 

This was at Jezreel, where Ahab had 
A favorite residence ; and wished to add, 
To beautify still more his fair domain, 
A vineyard owned by Naboth. When in vain 
He tried to diij, sick with vexation, he 
Refused to eat — '' Wait ! I will give it thee ; 
Be merry! Art thou king for nought?" 
Said Jezebel, with murder in her thought. 

None of the house of Ahab, Jehu spared ; 

One fate his great men, priests, and kindred shared. 

To make clean work, in his impetuous way, 
Of Baal's worshipers, he fixed a day 
For them to come together one and all 
In the god's house at Ahab's capital, 

cass shall be as dung upon the face Jehu shall serve him much. .^lAnd 

of the field. he sent through all Israel ; and all 

Ch. X : II. So Jehu slew all that the worshipers of Baal came, so that 

remained of the house of Ahab, and there was not a man left that came 

all his great men and kinsfolks, and not. And they came into the house 

his priests. .i^And he gathered all of Baal; and the house was full 

the people together and said unto from one end to another. . 25And 

them, Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu said to the guard and captain, 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 361 

Samaria, and grimly said to such : 

** Ahab served Baal little, I will much." 

And when the house from end to end was filled 

He orders gave : 

" Let every one be killed ; 
Break down his image, and his house as well ; 
Destroy thus Baal out of Israel ! " 

But Jehu took no heed with all his heart 
To keep the law, and from the sin depart 
Of Jeroboam — serving God by halves — 
Reserving worship for the golden calves 
That were in Bethel and that were in Dan. 
To cut then Israel short the Lord began : 
And Hazael the Syrian now smote 
The eastern tribes outlying and remote, 

Go in, and slay them; let none in all the coasts of Israel. .^sFrom 

come forth. .^fAnd they brake down Jordan eastward, all the land of Gil- 

the image of Baal, and the house ead, the Gadites, the Reubenites, 

of Baal, and made it a draught and the Manassites. 

house unto this day. ssxhus Jehu Ch. xv : 29. In the days of Pekali 

destroyed Baal out of Israel. king of Israel, came Tiglath-pileser 

3iBut Jehu took no heed to walk king of Assyria, and took. .Kedesh, 

in the law of the Lord God of Israel and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, 

with all his heart ; for he departed all the land of Naphtali, and carried 

not from the sins of Jeroboam.. 32And them captive to Assyria. 

in those days the Lord began to cut Ch. xvii : 6. In the ninth year of 

Israel short: and Hazael smote them Hoshea, the king of Assyria took 



362 THE EVANGEL. 

Manasseh, Reuben, Gad. Another day 
Tiglath-pileser carried them away 
Captive — tlie "Tiger Lord of Asshur." Last 
He came, who from the head of Ephraim cast 
His crown of pride, Samaria, a flower 
Whose glorious beauty perished in an hour. 
Swinging the scythe of conquest, reapers glean 
The harvest of the land — a dish wiped clean 
And then turned upside down : the people torn 
From all their dear possessions, bound and borne 
Into Assyria — lived there by the shore 
Of unknown rivers, and returned no more. 

And men, from heathen countries far away, 
Dwelt in the cities of Samaria. 
At first destroyed by lions, they believed 
It was because the local God was grieved ; 

Samaria, and carried Israel away the glorious beauty shall be as a fa- 

into x^ssyria, and placed them in ding flower.] 

Halah and in Habor by the river of 24 \rid the king of Assyria brought 

Gozan, and in the cities of the men from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, 

Medes. Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and 

[Is. xxviii : i. Woe to the crown placed them in the cities of Sa- 

of pride, to the drunkards of Eph- maria, instead of the children of 

raim, whose glorious beauty is a Israel. 25Xhe Lord sent lions among 

fading flower. .-'The crown of pride them which slew some of them, 

shall be trodden under feet : <And 2sOne of the priests who was carried 



JOURNEY : BEYOND THE JORDAN. 363 

And so a priest was back from exile brought, 
That they His way and worship might be taught. 
Mongrels in faith and blood, the haughty Jew 
With the Samaritan would have nought to do. 

Hope, born of promise, daughter of the skies, 
Turns toward the orient with straining eyes ; 
Sees evermore the eastern mountains burn 
With kindling tokens of a near return : 
Along the rolling centuries' far track 
From Bashan sees lost Israel brought back. 
Misled by prophecy misunderstood, 
Sees marching 'cross the Syrian solitude 
The sons of Jacob, gathered from all lands 
Where they are scattered, banners in their hands. 
In marshaled, proud, magnificent array, 
Songs of thanksgiving singing on the way 
To their Deliverer, the Lord of Hosts : 
While on before the loud-voiced herald posts 

away came and dwelt in Bethel, and Ch. li : 11. Therefore the redeem- 

taught them how they should fear ed of the Lord shall return, and 

the Lord..33They feared the Lord come with singing unto Zion. 

and served their own gods. Is. xl : 3. The voice of him that 

Ps. Ixviii : 22. The Lord said, I crieth in the wilderness, Prepare 

will bring again from Bashan. ye the way of the Lord, make straight 



364 THE EVANGEL. 

Crying, " Prepare the way ! make a straight road, 
A highway in the desert for our God ! " 
As he appears on the Peraean Hills, 
The shouting multitude the welkin fills : 
'' How beautiful upon the mountains are 
The feet of him who bringeth from afar 
Good tidings, publisheth to Zion peace, 
Salvation, kingdom, and a large increase ! " 



After the schism, the diminished throne 
And kingdom of the house of David, known 
As Judah, stood four hundred years. Because 
Of manifold transgressions of His laws, 
God gave it then into the spoiler's hand. 
Who stript, laid waste, and peeled the guilty land. 
And carried captive. Seventy years they wept 
Their banishment, by mournful memories swept. 

in the desert a highway for our God. the vessels of the house of God : all 

Ch. lii : 7. How beautiful upon fhese he brought to Babylon. i^And 

the mountains are the feet of him they burnt the house of God ; and 

that bringeth good tidings, that pub- brake down the wall of Jerusalem, 

lisheth salvation : that saith unto and burnt all the palaces thereof. 

Zion, Thy God reigneth. Jer. xxix : 10. After seventy years 

II Chron. xxxvi : 17. Therefore be accomplished at Babylon I will 

he gave them all into the hands of visit you and perform my good word 

the king of the Chaldees. .i^And all toward you. 



JOURNEY: BEYOND THE JORDAN. 36$ 

There by the streams of Babylon they hung 
Their harps upon the willows, swayed and swung 
By pitying winds that from each grieving cord, 
Once vocal with the praises of the 'Lord, 
Drew soft complaint and melancholy moan, 
Heart-breaking sighs — responsive to their own, 
Contritely breathed into Jehovah's ears, 
Mixed with confessions steeped in bitter tears. 

Break forth, ye mountains, into singing! make 
A joyful noise, O forest ! now awake 
A multitudinous rapture ; let each leaf 
Of all the trees conspire to banish grief! 
For that the Lord, Himself hath glorified 
In Israel ; done that He prophesied 
Of Cyrus His anointed, saying, " He 
My Shepherd is, to turn captivity 
From Judah ; to Jerusalem to say, 
* Again be built ! ' and to the Temple, ' Lay 

Ps. cxxxvii : i. By the rivers of every tree therein : for the Lord hath 

Babylon there we sat down, yea, we redeemed Jacob and glorified him- 

wept when we remembered Zion. self in Israel. .ssThat saith of Cyrus, 

- We hanged our harps upon the He is my shepherd, and shall per- 

willows in the midst thereof. form all my pleasure ; even saying 

Is. xliv:23. Break forth into sing- to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built : 

ing, ye mountains, O forests, and and to the temple. Thy foundation 



366 THE EVANGEL. 

Once more foundations.' " When a hoary few 
That the first Temple in its glory knew, 
Awful with the Shechinah, thought 
This in comparison to be as nought, 
Prophets reproved the ignorant lament, 
And spake instructed and inspired dissent : 

" The glory of the latter House shall be 
More than the former ; what though now ye see 
No dazzling cloud illuminate the Shrine, 
There is no need of symbol or of sign ; 
For the Desire of Nations comes, and will 
This House with glory at His coming fill : 
The Lord ye seek shall suddenly appear ; 
The Angel of the Covenant shall enter here ; 
Hither with haste and burning zeal repair 
To vindicate it as the House of Prayer." 



shall be laid. Hag. ii : 3. Who is of this latter house shall be greater 

left among you that first saw this than of the former, 
house in her first glory? and how Mai. iii : i. The Lord whom ye 

>do ye see it now ? is it not in your seek shall suddenly come to his 

eyes in comparison as nothing? temple, even the messenger of the 

6 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yet covenant whom ye delight in. 
once, it is a little while, . . -And I will Ps. lix : 9 ; John ii : 17. The zeal 

shake all nations, and the Desire of of thine house hath eaten me up. 
all nations shall come, and I will fill Is. Ivi : 7. My house shall be called 

this house with glory ? ^The glory an house of prayer for all people. 



JOURNEY : ARRIVAL AT JERUSALEM. 367 

The Journey done, as Jesus enters in, 
What sights assail Him! and what sounds of sin ! 
What greater shame ! His spirit how it grieves ! 
He sees God's Temple made a den of thieves, 
A cave of robbers, where men cog and cheat 
Worse than the villains of the mart and street ; 
Who worship Mammon in the House of God, 
Because the place is favorable for fraud. 
Forth with a whip of twisted cords He drives 
The trading brigands trembling for their lives : 
They shrink, they cower, they unresisting fly, 
Chased by the frowning terror of His eye. 
And terror of His voice, while thus He spake: 
** Go, get you hence, and with you these things 

take ! " 



Jer. vii : 11. Is this house, which Father's house a house of merchan- 

is called by my name, become a den dise. 

of robbers? Behold even I have [Luke xix : 46. It is written, My 

seen it, saith the Lord. house is the house of prayer, but ye 

John ii : 13. And Jesus went up to have made it a den of thieves — lit. 

Jerusalem, i^And found in the tem- a cave of robbers.] 

pie those who sold oxen, and sheep. Is. Ix : i. Arise, shine; for thy 

and doves, and the changers of mo- light is come, and the glory of the 

ney, i»And when he had made a Lord is risen upon thee. 

scourge of small cords he drove John ii : 18. Then the Jews said 

them all out of the temple and over- unto him. What sign showest thou 

threw the tables ; i^And said. Take unto us, seeing that thou doest these 

these things hence, make not my things ? i^Jesus said. Destroy this 



368 THE EVANGEL. 

Arise, and shine ! thy Light is come : now breaks 
The morning of a heavenly Day, that makes 
A glory on the mountains and the hills, 
And the green depths of all the valleys fills. 
The Lord is in His holy Temple, let 
The earth keep silence. The Shechinah yet 
O'erflovvs the Mercy-seat, but now in room 
Of the wrought fabric of the hand and loom, 
Is the thin veil and the unhiding mesh 
Of the chaste medium of human flesh 
Through which the mellow rays of Godhead stream 
With power to soften, not obstruct the beam. 
The Temple of His body — it shall be 
His habitation through Eternity. 
Destroy this Temple and He it will raise 
Again in greater glory in three days. 
This costly pile of marble, stone on stone, 
Shall in a little while be overthrown : 
The type fulfilled, the type shall pass away ; 
The law shall pass, but grace and truth shall stay. 

temple, and in three days I will in three days? 2iBut he spake of 
raise it up. ^oxhen said the Jews, the temple of his body. 
Forty and six years was this temple Mark ii : i. Again he entered la- 
in building, and wilt thou rear it up to Capernaum ; and it was noised 



JOURNEY : ARRIVAL AT JERUSALEM. 369. 

As He was teaching once, there sat to hear 
Doctors and pharisees from far and near, 
With a great gathering of many more, 
That thronged the house and entrance of the door^ 
Borne by four men a palsied man they brought, 
And hindered by the multitude, they sought 
New means of access. Others having failed. 
Bent on their purpose, they the house-top scaled^ 
And through an opening in the tiling, they 
Let down the couch on which the sick man lay. 
When Jesus saw their faith ; and saw within 
The paralytic, penitence for sin. 
And knew that healing he would value less 
Than a deliverance from his soul's distress, 
With reassuring smile and look of grace. 
He, all His Father shining in His face. 
Addressed him: " Son, thy sins forgiven be, 
Be of good cheer! " and scribe and pharisee 



that he was in the house. 2And palsy, which was borne of four, 

straightway many were gathered to- -* And when they could not come 

gether, insomuch that there was no nigh unto him for the press, they 

room to receive them, no, not so uncovered the roof where he was : 

much as about the door; and he and when they had broken it up, 

preached to them. .3And they came they let down the bed wherein the- 

unto him, bnnging one sick of the sick of the palsy lay. 5When Je- 



370 



THE EVANGEL. 



Said inwardly: " Why thus blasphemes this one — 
For who can sins forgive but God alone ? " 
As nought was hid from His all-seeing eye, 
To their unspoken thought He made reply: 

"Were it an easier and diviner act, 
Think you, to say, Be healed ? The grander fact 
That I can sins forgive, let this avouch : 

" Arise !" He turning said, " take up thy couch. 
And go thy way ! " The sick man rose and went, 
And all were filled with great astonishment. 

When Jesus speaks, so sweet the sound, 
The harps of heaven are hushed to hear ; 

And all His words go circling round 
From lip to lip and ear to ear. 



sus saw their faith, he said unto the 
sick of the palsy, Son, th.y sins be 
forgiven thee. <>But there were cer- 
tain of the scribes sitting there, and 
reasoning in their hearts, "Wliy 
doth this man thus speak blasphe- 
mies? Who can forgive sins but 
God only ? f'And immediately, 
when Jesus perceived in his spirit 
that they so reasoned within them- 
selves, he said unto them, Why rea- 
son ye these things in your hearts? 
^Whether it is easier to say to the 
sick of the palsy, Thy sins be for- 



given thee ; or to say. Arise, and 
take up thy bed, and walk ? loBut 
that ye may know that the Son of 
man hath power on earth to forgive 
sins, (he saith to the sick of the 
palsy,) 111 say unto thee. Arise, 
and take up thy bed, and go thy way 
into thine house. 2iAnd immediate- 
ly he arose, took up the bed, and 
went forth before them all ; inso- 
much that they were all amazed, and 
glorified God, saying, We never saw 
it on this fashion. 



JOURNEY : ARRIVAL AT JERUSALEM. 3/1 

But wondering seraph never heard, 

In all the mighty years of heaven, 
Music so sweet as that dear word — 

" Good cheer! thy sins are all forgiven." 

Sinners of earth, redeemed by blood ! 

How leaped your hearts, when first ye knew 
Th' amazing grace, and understood 

The gift of pardon was for you. 

Adopted now, with spirits awed. 

Knowing your privilege unpriced, 
Ye boast the Fatherhood of God, 

And Brotherhood of Jesus Christ. 



Note. — The historical episode here giveai, having been framed with 
reference to the claims of a supposed Journey, the relation of events has 
been made to conform to the order of places passed through, to the neglect 
■of strict chronological sequence. The sweep of the narrative takes in the 
following subjects, arranged in proper order as to time: i. Jacob (pp. 
254-264); 2. The Exodus (pp. 295-298) ; 3. Conquest of Eastern Pales- 
tine — Og, Sihon (pp. 251-257) ; 4. Moab — Balak and Balaam (pp. 299- 
310) ; 5. Conquest of Western Palestine under Joshua (pp. 310-334). 
6. Israel under Judges, Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah (pp. 336-340), 
Gideon, Jephthah (pp. 264-290) ; 7. Israel under Kings — Saul (pp. 290- 
295), Ruth, David, Solomon (pp. 343-357) ; 8. The Dis^ision of the King- 
dom into the two Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and their subsequent 
fortunes (pp. 357-367); 9. Jesus' Arrival at Jerusalem, and the Cleansing 
■of the Temple (pp. 367-371.) 



XVII. 

THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

cc y ORD, teach us how to pray! Give form and 
I J thought! 

We know not what to pray for as we ought : 
Put words into our mouths of power and reach — 
Ordered, effectual, avaihng speech ! " 

*'Thou, when thou prayest, first prepare thy 
heart, 
For prayer is spirit, not mere verbal art ; 
Not cant ; not hypocritical parade 
Of Pharisaic piety displayed 
In synagogues and corners of the streets — 
False claimings and deliberate deceits ; 
Sonorous juggle of pretentious brags. 
And pubhc flauntings of a sinner's rags. 

Luke xi : i. And it came to pass, him, Lord, teach us to pray, as Johr> 
that, as he was praying in a certain alsotaught his disciples. zAndhesaid 
place, one of his disciples said unto when ye pray, say. Our Father, etc. 



THE lord's prayer. 373 

Enter thy closet ! having shut thy door, 

In secret ask, and what you need implore ! 

Use not vain repetitions and absurd — 

For your much speaking think not ye are heard. 

Mumbling and pattering prayers, and keeping 

count 
Up to the number of the full amount 
Of prescribed penance ! Not if prayer were pence, 
Could Heaven be paid with coin of false pretence. 
After this manner pray, in faith and fear, 
And God who knows before your need will hear. 
Who asks receives ; he enters who thus knocks ; 
This key of heaven^ infallibly unlocks : " 

Our Father — bold appropriating *' Our" — 
Founded on filial privilege and power, 

Matt, vi : 5. And when thou pray- which seeth in secret shall reward 
est, thou shalt not be as the hypo- thee openly. ''But when ye pray, 
crites are : for they love to pray use not vain repetitions, as the 
standing in the synagogues and in heathen do ; for they think that they 
the corners of the streets, that they shall be heard for their much speak- 
may be seen of men. Verily I say ing. ^Be not ye therefore like unto 
amto you. They have their reward, them: for your Father knoweth what 
6But thou, when thou prayest, enter things ye have need of, before ye 
into thy closet, and when thou hast ask him. ^After this manner there- 
shut thy door, pray to thy Father fore pray ye : Our Father, etc. 
which is in secret; and thy Father 

* "Clavis Coeli." 



374 THE EVANGEL. 

And grace of sonship, given through Thy Son^ 
If not Thy children make us so each one ; 
The spirit of adoption, O supply, 
That we with yearning breast may, Abba ! cry. 

Who art in Heaven — because Thou art, we are ; 
We are Thy offspring, and Thou art not far 
From each of us. Thy face we cannot see, 
But Thou dost hear, though in eternity 
The faintest whisper, and dost recompense 
The prayer that's brief, believing, and intense. 
Not fixed at Gerizim, not worshiped there, 
Not in Jerusalem, but everywhere. 
Thou in the high and holy place dost dwell 
And in the contrite lowly heart as well. 
Thou art in heaven, for Thou Thyself art Heaven^ 
Thy smile doth make it in our bosoms even. 
We fly to Thee, we rush into Thy arms 
From earthly evils and from hellish harms ; 
The skyey infinite of Thy embrace 
Hath room for us, and all the human race. 

Thy Name be hallowed — dedicate and dear. 
Sacred, and separate to solemn fear 



THE lord's prayer. 375 

And awful mention : silence lips profane, 

That take it now continually in vain ; 

Use it to garnish scurrilous discourse, 

And add to curses emphasis and force ; 

To hissing hate a feller sting impart, 

And deadlier venom to the maddened heart : 

Use it to perjure with, to pledge the Sky 

To the deceit and baseness of a lie. 

O never let it be through us blasphemed, 

Misrepresented, shamed, and disesteemed 

By lives ungodly, and a false pretence 

Of piety to cover rank offence ! 

But may our walk be worthy Thine elect; 

Our words declare Thee, and our works reflect ; 

That others seeing easily may trace 

Paternal likeness in the children's face. 

Thy Name stands for Thyself, for all Thou art ; 

How great that all when Nature's but a part, 

Transient and poor of Thy eternal whole. 

To man Thou gavest an immortal soul — 

When Thy dread voice, resounding through the 

void, 
Made only worlds to be again destroyed. 



37& THE EVANGEL. 

Since this material universe we see 

Needs Mind to worship and interpret Thee, 

Thy works so manifold, immense in sum, 

Are gloriously significant, but dumb, 

Help us give voice, that every single thing, 

May utter praise, and sing or seem to sing! 

While Seraphim to Cherubim still cry, 

*' Holy! " and these antiphonal reply, 

*' Holy! " and heavenly trumpets loudly blow, 

As we the echoing thunder catch below, 

Help us to send it back to sinless ears 

All tremulous and moist with grateful tears. 

Thy threefold name we hallow, we divide 

Not worship — Oneness multiplied 

Into the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, 

Make Thy One Self our confidence and boast : 

Without these names, what dearness were 

concealed ! 
Thy blessed Godhead were but half revealed: 
Great is the mystery, but great the grace, 
For thereby comes salvation to the race. 
Touch our cold lips, and kindle from above, 
To make each heart a holocaust of love, 



THE LORD S PRAYER. 377 

That there may rise through all our future days 
The smoke and sweetness of perpetual praise ! 

Thy Kingdom come— Earth travaileth in pain ; 
Long time hath travailed, travailing in vain, 
Bringing forth nought but would-bes which are 

not — 
Pretence of rule by violence begot ; 
Usurping tyrannies of thousand thrones, 
Founded on cruelty, and built on groans. 
To perish soon ; but only to give place 
To others resting on as false a base : 
Full of uneasiness and all unrest 
Is the best government even at the best : 
Armies must prop it ; navies must defend. 
So feeble is it, hastening to its end. 
Crime stalks unpunished, ignorant of awe 
For the shorn helpless Samson of the law — 
To serve some greed or gratify some grudge 
Enacts the statute and appoints the judge : 
Justice is accident, and right is chance 
Of which no one is certain in advance. 
Men grope for something better, blindly grope, 



3/8 THE EVANGEL. 

Wage bloody wars, but get not what they hope. 

Gird on Thy thigh Thy sword of majesty ! 

In triumph ride ! and let Thine arrows be 

Sharp in the hearts of foes ! subdue and win 

The wide dominions of this world of sin ! 

O let it come, despite the powers of hell. 

That Kingdom wherein righteousness doth dwell, 

That only Throne no waste of time decays, 

That single Sceptre sacred Justice sways! 

Let this world's kingdoms all be merged in one, 

The Kingdom of the Father and the Son ! 

Since unobserved it comes, and is within 

To make imperial conquests over sin — 

Is nowhere found, except where sweetly draw 

The mercy and the majesty of law 

In souls reborn — Thy Holy Spirit give, 

That so the dead in trespasses may live ; 

And loyal subjects of a heavenly birth 

Be greatly multiplied and fill the earth. 

Thy Will be done — no other will but Thine: 
Thy will is best, because it is divine : 
Thy will be ours in times of joy or woe — 



THE lord's prayer. 3/9 

Thou knowest all things and we nothing know. 
Thou art our Father, and 'tis sweet to trust 
Thee all the way from Deity to dust. 
We would both suffer, and would do Thy will ; 
All duty, and all righteousness fulfil. 
Thy will expresses law, th' eternal Right, 
And varies not, the same in depth and height. 
The law man breaks, the dwellers in the sky 
Make haste to execute — they run, they fly 
From world to world on swift obedient wing, 
And in the blissful work rejoice and sing. 
Thy will be done, so dear to all above, 

On earth as done in Heaven — with joy and 
love — 
That earth may be like heaven, so like in bliss, 
'Twere equal where we dwell in that or this. 

Give us this day our daily^ bread — supply 
The means of life, that we may live thereby. 

*T\\e word epio7ision [kirLovaiov), rendered in our version "daily," is 
found nowhere else except in the corresponding place in Luke ; and its 
meaning has been the subject of much dispute from the earliest times. 
One class of interpreters deriving- it from <?//=" super," and ous}a=i 
" being," "substance " or " subsistence," ascribe to it a qualitative mean- 



380 THE EVANGEL. 

Great is our asking, for our wants are great, 
Many and urgent, and refuse to wait ; 
Each shrunk and famished fibre of our frames 
Its stated portion vehemently claims — • 
Delayed beyond the hour its stated share, 
With hungry beak relentless vultures tear. 
Let Thy dear hand to each of us convey 
The food we need to nourish us this day — 
Whose hours, the morrows of the present are. 
Still future, and uncertain, and afar. 
Thou art Omnipotent, and canst provide : 
To vital ends Thou dost all Nature guide ; 



ing, and so render it " supersubstantial " and the like; wliile another 
class, deriving it from epiousa [r] eTriovan — "the coming day," " the mor- 
row,"] attach to it a temporal meaning, or one referring to time, making 
the petition to read: " Give us this day our bread 'for the coming day,' 
' the morrow,' ' the immediate future,' otherwise, 'for the current day' — 
our ' daily ' or ' quotidian ' bread." This seems to be the prevailing and 
preferred rendering. Even the Vulgate, which is Jerom's Translation 
based on an older La^in Version, while it has " supersubstantialem " in 
Mattliew, adheres to the older rendering of " quotidianum " in f.uke. 
However construed, it is meant to be a devout recognition of our absolute 
dependence upon Him "in whom we [momentarily] live, move, and have 
our being." The next or coming moment is, so to speak, "the mor- 
row" of the present or passing one — it is God's not ours, wholly contin- 
gent on His pleasure, something of which we can be no more sure tliaii 
of the following day or the following year. The scope of the petition, 
we must believe, was intended to be coextensive with our total wants, and 
so could not fail to include those of our animal nature. As one quaintly 
remarks: " Man is not a cow or ahorse, but he is among cows and liorses. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 381 

Dost tax the elements, and bend the sky 
To meet our exigence lest that we die ; 
Upon the evil and the good dost make 
The sun to rise, the rain to fall, to wake 
The sleeping grain : the seasons with the soil 
Dost join in sweet co-operative toil 
To cause our bread to grow ; and all this wealth, 
Turn to the blessed purposes of health — 
The richness and the ripeness of the fields, 
All that the earth, the air, the water yields. 
Be in our mouths to sanctify our food ! 
Attend its progress, changing it to blood ! 
Without a miracle we are not fed : 



and must eat with them : therefore, when he is thus fed, he rightly lifts 
up his head above them, conscious that he is thus fed, and in order that 
he may never forget he is." But inasmuch as we are " better than they," 
and have other higher and immortal wants — those specially and distinct- 
ively human — it must be that the satisfaction of these, our hungerings 
and thirstings after righteousness, forms an essential part of the asking. 
He who "hangs creation on His arm and feeds it at His board," adapts. 
His supplies to the separate natures and needs of all His creatures — giving 
to each his portion in due season. Nor is it enough, that He gives us 
food in the sense of putting it into our hands: to give it effectually it 
needs to be divinely assimilated and applied; consequently, the rich have 
equal, often greater occasion to put up this petition than the poor. Solo- 
mon says: " There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is 
common among men : a man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, 
and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, 
yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof." Ecc. vi : i, 2. 



382 THE EVANGEL. 

In vain we eat, Thou must convert the bread, 

Must transubstantiate and make it flesh, 

Or else it cannot profit or refresh. 

Feed us with needful sleep and needful air! 

All vital lack and loss and waste repair ! 

Give strength, and that the gift* be not in vain, 

Give consecration of the heart and brain ! 

But not for bread that perisheth alone, 

Do we surround and supplicate Thy Throne ; 

Nor do we seek that most, or seek it first — 

For righteousness we hunger and we thirst : 

Our heart cries out for Thee, the Living God, 

Give it enlargement ! make desire more broad ! 

With arms stretched wider than the east and west 

We long to clasp Thee to our hungry breast. 

As the hart panteth, seeking wearily 

After the water brooks, so after Thee 

Our souls athirst cease not to pant and pine — 

The human infinite craving the divine. 

Our sins weigh heavily, and day by day 

We stumble walking in the narrow way; 

Forsake the Living Fountain fresh and cool, 

To drink the brackish waters of the pool; 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 383 

With added thirst and faint and feeble breath, 
We cry to Thee to save our souls from death. 
O give, that last resource of grace divine, 
Thy blessed Self to be our bread and wine ! 

And forgive us our debts as we forgive 
Our debtors — not one moment dare we live 
With sin unpardoned : Thou from leprous guilt 
Canst make us clean, O Saviour, if Thou wilt. 
Since of Thy infinite Thou dost acquit, 
'Tis little that our nothings we remit ; 
But with Thy other gifts, the gift impart 
Of a forgiving and a humble heart ; 
Lest when we pray, we imprecate a curse, 
And make our sad condition only worse. 

And lead us not into temptation — frail 
We shrink from trial lest, since free, we fail. 
We ask to give us grace to watch and pray — 
Our moral freedom not to take away — 
If we Thy service did not freely choose. 
It were not worship, and Thou wouldst refuse 
The spurious offering ; but we're depraved, 



384 THE EVANGEL. 

And from besetting sins would fain be saved : 
For in our members still a law we find 
That wars against the purpose of our mind, 
To bring us captive under sin anew, 
So that the things we would, we do not do. 

Deliver us from evil — that within, 
Th' unspeakable deceitfulness of sin. 
There where it lurks, in unsuspected guise 
'Neath holy seemings, wrappages of lies, 
Robed like an angel, all the virtues apes — 
The hidden devil in a thousand shapes. 
Who knows or can his errors or his lack ? 
O cleanse Thou us from secret faults ! Keep back 
Thy servants from presumptuous sins as well, 
The broad and open road that leads to hell ! 
From danger, sickness, accident and death 
Deliver us ! From strife, the evil breath 
Of calumny and poisonous untruth 
Wiles of the devil and men void of ruth ! 
Give us deliverance from mortal woes ; 
And final triumph over all our foes, 
From those without, still more from those within; 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 385 

And make us more than conquerors over sin, 
Death, and corruption, and the wormy grave, 
Through His dear might who mighty is to save ! 
O hear our Htany ! submiss and meek 
We seek that only Thou hast told us seek. 
For Thine the Kingdom is, and Thine the Power, 
And Thine the Glory, now and evermore : 
Amen ! let all the people say, 

Amen! 



The Light of the World. 



BEING THE SECOND PART OF 



The Life and Teachings of Our Lord. 

IN VERSE. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Preface, xi.-xxxi. 

I. The Kingdom of God. — Chrisf s discourse with 
Nicodemus. The New Birth. God's great 
love. The So?t of Man lifted up. Hymn. i 

(John ii. 23-25 ; iii. 1-21.) 

II. John's Final Testimony — The Heavenly 
Bridegroom. — Everlasting Life in the Son. 
Hymn. - - - - -- - 14 

(John iii. 22-36.) 

III. The Dialogue at Jacob's Well. — The Liv- 

ing Water. True Worship. ^^This is the 
Christ, the Saviour of the World.'* Llymn. 19 
(John iv. 1-42.) 

IV. Return to Galilee. — Rejection at Nazar- 

eth. — The nobleman's son healed at Cana. 
Jesus teaches publicly. Leaves Nazareth and 
comes to Caper nau7n. Hymn. - - - 29 
(John iv. 43-54 ; Luke iv. 16-31.) 

V. Abode at Capernaum. — The Apostolate. — 
Call of Peter, Andrew, Jaines and John. 
Hymn. -----.-38 
(Matt. iv. 13-22 ; Mark i. 16-20 ; Luke v. i-ii.) 

VI. Healer and Saviour. — Christ heals a demon- 
iac, Peter s wife's mother, and others. De- 



vi. CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

scription of diseases. Cures a leper. Proves 
His power to forgive sins by makiJig a para- 
lytic walk. Psalm ciii. - - - . 44 

(Mark i. 21 — ii. 12 ; Luke iv. 31 — v. 26 ; Matt. viii. 
2-4 ; ix. 2-8.) 

VII. The New Dispensation. — The Sabbath. — 
Call of Levi (Matthew) . Why Jesus' disci- 
ples do not fast. Neiv wine put into neiv bot- 
tles. He heals the impotent mail at the Pool 
of Bethesda on the Sabbath. Justifies Him- 
self before the Sanhedrim. His disciples 
pluck ears of corn. The Son of Man is Lord 
of the Sabbath. Restores a man with a 
withered hand. The elders charge blasphe7tiy 
and seek to kill Him. Hymn, - - - 55 

(Matt. ix. 9-13 ; xii. 1-21 ; Mark ii. 13-28 ; iii. 1-12 ; 
Luke V. 27-32 ; Luke vi. 1-5 ; John v. 1-47.) 

VIII. The Sermon on the Mount. — He chooses and 

ordains the Twelve. Heals great nu?nbers 

come from all parts. Teaches and legislates 

with supreme authority. Psalni i. - - 75 

(Matt. V. I — vii. 29; Mark iii. 13-19; Luke vi. 12-49.) 

IX. The Centurion. — Widow of Nain. — Impris- 
onment AND Death of John. — He heals 
the Centurion s servant. Raises the IVidotv 
of Nains son. John in prison se?ids two of 
his disciples to Jesus. Christ's eulogy. Ode. 98 

(Matt. viii. i, 5-13; xi. 2-19; xiv. 3-12; Mark vi. 17- 
29; Luke vii. 1-35.) 

X. The Penitent Woman. — The Unpardon- 



CONTENTS. vii. 

I'AGE. 

ABLE Sin. — Beware of Covetousness. — 
While at meat at the house of Swton, the 
Pharisee, a wo??ian, who was a sinner, enters 
and anoints his feet. Psabn li. Demons 
cast out with a word. Blasphemy against 
the Holy Ghost. They seek a sign. The sign 
of the prophet Jonah. Who are His mother 
and brethren. The rich fool. The spared 
fig tree. - - - - - - - 109 

(Luke vii. 36-50; viii. 19-21; xi. 14-36; xii. 13-21; 
xiii. 1-9; Matt. xii. 22-50; Mark iii. 19-35.) 

XI. What the Kingdom of Heaven is Like. — 
The Parable of the Sower, of the Tares, of 
the Mustard Seed, of the Leaven, of the Hid 
Treasure, of the Pearl, of the Drag-net. 
Hymn. ------- 128 

(Matt. xiii. 1-52; Mark iv. 1-20; Luke viii. 4-15.) 

XII. Tempest Stilled. — Demoniac of Gadara. — 
Jairus' Daughter.— a Believing Touch. 
He heals two blind men and a dumb man. - 135 

(Matt. viii. 23-34; Mark iv. 35 — v. 43; Luke viii. 22- 
56.) 

f 

XIII. The Twelve Sent Out. — Five Thousand 

Fed. — Walks o?t the water. The True 

Bread. Hytnn. - - - - - 143 

(Matt. ix. 35 — X. 39; xiv. 12-36; Mark vi. 7-13; Luke 
ix. 1-17; John vi. 1-69.) 

XIV. What Defiles. — Syrophenician Woman. — 

Seven Thousand Fed. - - - - 159 
(Matt. XV. 1-39; Mark vii. i — viii. 9.) 



viii. CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

XV. The Transfiguration. — Demoniac Cured. 
— Duties of Faith, Humility, Forgiveness. 
Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. - - i66 
(Matt. xvi. 13-23; xvii. 1-27; xviii. 1-35; Mark ix. i- 
50; Luke ix. 18 — x. 20.) 

XVI. Jerusalem through Samaria. — Ten lepers 
cleansed. Feast of the Tabernacles. The 
woman taken in adultery. True Freedom. 
The Good Samaritan. Martha and Mary. 
The man born blind healed on the Sabbath. 
The Good Shepherd. I and My Father are 
one. Hymn. - - . . _ - 176 

(Luke ix. 51-56; xvii. 11-19; John vii. 8 — x. 42.) 
XVII. I AM THE Resurrection and the Life. — 
Sickfiess and death of Lazarus. Raised to 
life. Theories. Explanation of terms. Hymn. 194 

(John xi. 1-46.) 
XVIII. Retires beyond the Jordan. — Dines with a 
chief Pharisee on the Sabbath. On coveting 
chief seats at table. Parable of the Great 
Supper, of the Lost Sheep, of the Prodigal 
Son-, of the Unjust Steward, of the Rich 
Man and Lazarus, of the Unjust Judge, of 
the Pharisee and Publican. Blesses little 
children. The Rich Young Man. Danger 
of j'iches. Following Him in the regenera- 
tion. Parable of the Laborers in the Vine- 
yard ; Unprofitable Servants. - - - 210 

(John xi. 47-54; xii. i, 17-19; Mark x. i, 13-31; 
Luke xiii. 22, 31 — xiv. 24 — xvi. 31; Matt. xxi. 
1-46; Luke xvii. 7-10.) 



CONTENTS. 



IX. 



2^1 



XIX. Return to Jerusalem through Jericho. — 
James and John's ambitious request. Blind 
Bartimeus. Zaccheus the Publican. Para- 
ble of the Ten Pounds. Public entry into 
Jerusalem. Second cleansing of the Temple. 
Of the Two Sons. Parable of the Wicked 
Husbandman. ---.-_ 

(Matt. XX. 17-34; xxi. 1-41; Mark X. 32-52; xi. i— 
xii. 9; Luke xviii. 31 — xix. 27 — xx. 19,) 

XX. Nearing the End. — Of paying tribute to Ccesar. 
The question of the Sadditcees, denier s of the 
resurrection. The Messiah David's Son and 
Lord The pride and hypocrisy of the Scribes 
and Pharisees exposed. Vision of the fate 
of Jerusalem. The widow's mite. Leaves 
the Temple for the last time. The disciples 
admire its stones^ etc. Lie foretells its de- 
struction and that of the City. The duty of 
watching. The Parable of the Ten Virgins, 
of the Sheep and Goats. Dies Lrce. - - 245 

(Matt. xxii. 15— xxv. 46; Mark xii. 13— xiii. 37; Luke 
XX. 20 — xxi. 37.) 

XXI. The Last Supper. — Farewell Words. — At 
a supper given in Bethany at the house of 
Simon the leper, Mary anoints LLis head and 
feet. Passover and Memorial Supper. Lie 
washes the disciples' feet. The many man- 
sions. Lntercessory Prayer. - - - 276 
(Matt. xxvi. 1-35; Mark xiv. 1-25; Luke xxii. 1-38; 
John xii. 1-8, 46; xiii. i — xvii. 26.) 



X. CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

XXII. The Betrayal, Trial and Sentence. — 

Judas' re7norse and suicide. - - - 295 

(Matt, xxvi, 36 — xxvii. 66; Mark xiv. 26 — xv. 20; 
Luke xxii. 39 — xxiii. 24; John xviii. i — xix. 16.) 

XXIII. The Crucifixion AND Entombment. — Hymns. 317 

(Matt. xxvi. 31 — xxvii. 66; Mark xv. 20-47; Luke 
xxiii. 26-49; John xix. 16-42.) 

XXIV. Resurrection and Ascension. — Touch me 

not. I am not yet ascended. Note. Joins 
two disciples on theii' way to Emmaus. 
Easter and Ascension Hymns. Pentecost. 
Speaking with tongues. Peter's discourse. 
Veni, Creator Spiritus. - - - - oZ^ 
(Matt, xxviii, 1-20; Mark xvi. 1-16; Luke xxiv. 1-51; 
John XX. I — xxi. 25; Acts ii. 1-38.) 



PRE FACE. 

>npHE EVANGEL,* forming the First Part of ''The Life 
and Teachings of Our Lord^'' in Verse, barring some 
anticipations of events, stopped at the threshold of His 
ministry; and the present Volume — The Light of the 
World — is a continuation of the same through the entire 
Four Gospels to the end. Since the publication of that 
First Part, other Lives of Christ in Prose have appeared; 
but if it be true as George Herbert supposes, 

" A verse may find him who a sermon flies," 

the writer indulges the hope that the novelty of a Complete 
Life in Verse, including all His Words, conscientiously 
faithful, and one from which everything fictitious is care- 

*There has appeared, since the first publication of The Evangel, Mr. Edwin Arnold's 
interesting- (but somewhat misleading) Poem entitled " The Light of Asia, or, the Great 
Renunciation, being the Life and Teaching of Gautama, Prince of India and Founder 
of Buddhism." Four hundred and seventy millions of our race, the author estimates, 
live and die in the tenets of Gautama. Who was Gautama ? Did such a person ever 
exist? If so. What was the purport of his teachings? According to our author, he 
was born in the seventh century before Christ; other authorities make his birth two 
centuries later. Gautama was the family name ; his individual name was Siddartha ; 
Buddha was titular, meaning "The Enlightened One." He appeared as a Reformer 
of Brahminism, and an Opposer of Caste. His history is full of fable. Concerning 
his teaching, the author remarks, there has arisen prodigious controversy among the 
learned. He states his "own conviction that a third of mankind could never have 
been brought to believe in blank abstractions, or in Nothingness as the issue and 
crown of Being." The battle has raged chiefly around the import of three terms 



Xll. 



PREFACE. 



fully excluded — if tolerably executed, may still find accept- 
ance at the hands of some readers. All people are not alike. 
Tastes differ. Some people seldom or never read a line of 
poetry, good or bad. Another class are so exclusive in 
their likings as to deny even the name of poetry to some of 
the most admired pieces in the language. They will not 
allow, for example, that Goldsmith's " Deserted Village " 
has any just claim to be called poetry. They affirm, and 
affirm truly, that it contains no expression that might not 

viz.: " Nirvana," " Dharma" and " Karma." According to most authorities, Nirvana 
means annihilation, the Buddhist's Sumfium Bonu7n ; for, to be is to be miserable ; all 
existence is sorrow. Dharma is law or truth or righteousness. Karma (literally 
"doing") expresses the sum of a man's deservings, both his merits and demerits, 
which is the only thing that survives when a man dies. The soul and self cease to ex- 
ist, but this Karma, which is a pure abstraction, a mere word, and not an entity at all, 
is, nevertheless, the active cause of a new being ; and transmigration consists in in- 
numerable transfers, not of a soul for that has perished, but of merit and demerit, 
until at last all demerit being done away with, Nirvana is reached, which is the end 
of births and the final extinction of being. When a bad man dies, the demerit may 
be such, as that, passing by the vilest of animal forms, it shall descend to originate a 
.new existence in one of the 136 Buddhist hells situated in the interior of the earth, 
where the shortest term of punishment is ten millions of years ; the longest in- 
computable. This is what makes Nirvana so desirable, that all existence even 
the highest, that of deva or god, involves the possibility of this degradation. 
Never was there a system more intensely pessimistic. Mr. Arnold has given us only 
the brighter side— in obedience, as he says, to the laws of poetic art, omitting much- 
Beyond some humane and excellent precepts, Buddhism has little to recommend 
it. Its highest hope is a horror, and this is attainable only on impossible conditions. 
No one may pray, for there is no one to pray to, no Helper. This is Buddhism at its 
best; as it was— not as it is, "sorely overlaid with corruptions," its vitality gone. 
Woe to the race, if it had no other Gospel. In view of the disposition exhibited on 
the part of some to challenge a comparison between the system of Buddhism and Chris- 
tianity, to set up Gautama as a rival to Christ, the writer has been led to give to 
this Second Part the title of The Light of the World, in contradistinction to that of 
the somewhat invidious one. The Light of Asia, adopted by Mr. Arnold for his work. 



PREFACE. 



Xlll. 



be used in eloquent and descriptive prose. For like reasons 
they regard Dryden and Pope as clever versifiers, but not 
as entitled to take rank as poets; so true is it, that bigots 
are not confined to religion. These devotees of a creed and 
slaves of a theory scornfully reject what does not conform 
to their standard. But that narrowness, which refuses to 
let people be pleased in their own way, is unamiable to say 
the least. 

In view of the impossibility of framing a definition of 
Poetry, that shall so fix its meaning, as to furnish a just 
rule for determining in all cases what is Poetry and what 
is not, it is fortunate, that some security, against the caprice 
of individual opinion and the tyranny of fashion, can be 
found in one easily applied test, if not of genuineness, of 
fitness. It is within everyone's reach, and no one need fear 
to apply it. Poetry is certainly Verse, even if it be some- 
thing more. Verse, regarded as a means to an end, which 
is pleasure — either the pleasure of beauty or utility, one or 
both — is always, it is safe to say, a legitimate instrument, 
when it serves these purposes, whether men choose to 
dignify it with the name of Poetry or not. The mere fact, 
that Pope's " Essay on Man " has passed through numerous 
editions, and given pleasure to countless readers during 
a hundred and fifty years and more, is a sufficient vindica- 
tion of its metric form, in spite of all that has been said, or 
can be said, in regard to the unfitness of the subject for 



xiv. PREFACE. 



poetical treatment. His biographer, Dr. Johnson, says: 
''Its reception was not uniform: some thought it a very 
imperfect piece, though not without good lines." To say 
that it is shallow in its philosophy, and sophistical in its 
reasoning, and of no moral value, besides being, in no 
proper sense. Poetry, only strengthens the evidence in favor 
of the superior effectiveness of Verse; since, in that case, it 
would be due to the inherent buoyancy of this alone, that 
a showy piece of pretentious wisdom has been kept afloat 
so long. 

Some go so far as to assert, that Didactic Poetry is a 
contradiction in terms; and that no poetry can have the 
function of teaching; which, if it be true, so much the worse 
for Poetry; for if the name is to be so restricted, as to sever 
Poetry from all moral and religious uses, then is there rele- 
gated to Verse distinctively, a preeminent office of instruc- 
tion and delight, not attainable to Prose and unfitted for 
Poetry, making it the nobler of the two. It suffices for the 
argument, that Verse has been used from time immemorial 
for setting forth highest things; and found to be an ad- 
mirable expedient for stimulating attention and awakening 
interest, less perfectly accomplished by other means. If 
Pope chooses to trammel himself with the incumbrance of 
metre and rhyme in a Moral Piece, having found that he 
could express himself with greater conciseness, force and 
grace in that way than any other, he surely ought to be al- 



PREFACE. 



XV. 



lowed to do so, without subjecting himself to the imputation 
of folly. Doubtless his Essay could have been written in 
prose. Indeed it was declared at the time that it was so 
written, and that the poet did little more than translate 
Bolingbroke's prose into verse. But in prose it is certain 
that it would have had but few readers. 

Hegel is credited with saying, " That metre is the first 
and only condition absolutely demanded by poetry, yea, 
even more necessary than figurative, picturesque diction." 

Sir Philip Sidney wrote a Defense of Poetry. We are 
satisfied to limit ourselves to a Defense of Verse. Arch- 
bishop Trench in the Introduction to his Sacred Latin Poetry 
elaborates a Defense of Rhyme. He says: " The non-recog- 
nition of this, man's craving after, and deep delight in, the 
rhythmic and periodic — a craving which nature everywhere 
meets and gratifies and which all truest Art seeks to gratify 
as well — a seeing nothing in all this but a trick and artifice 
applied from without, lies at the root of that singular 
theory concerning the unfitness of poetry to be the vehicle 
of our highest addresses to God, and most reverent utter- 
ances about Him. * * ^ Everyone who has watched 
the effect on his own mind of the orderly marching of a 
regiment, or of the successive breaking of the waves upon 
the shore, or aught else which is thus rhythmic and periodic ^ 
knows, that in this, inspiring as it does the sense of order 
and proportion and purpose, there is ever an elevating and 



XVI. 



PREFACE. 



solemnizing power." Young, in his " Essay on Lyric 
Poetry," accounts for iht pleasure of rhyme on the principle, 
that "difficulties overcome give grace and pleasure." He 
further remarks: "It holds true in the province of writing 
as of war, the more danger the more honor." To a person 
engaged in a hazardous undertaking such a thought is cer- 
tainly encouraging. 

Of Lives of Christ in Prose there are many and excel- 
lent. The present one in Verse grew out of the conviction 
that a true non-epical Life in Verse (there being none) was 
a desideratum; that it was fitting, feasible, and calculated to 
be useful; that if a Prose Life was lawful, a Life in Verse 
was equally so; that no objection could be urged against 
the one, that did not lie against the other; that if a Life in 
Verse involved a change in diction, so did a Life in Prose 
involve it; so did every translation out of the original 
Greek, the most literal as well as the most free, involve it; so 
did all exegesis and interpretation involve it; the plain 
conclusion being, that nothing is sacred but the sense; and 
that to a proper understanding of this even, the employ- 
ment of verbal and sentential equivalents is often indispen- 
sable. As well might one quarrel with his Dictionary, as 
to make these inevitable changes a ground of offense. 
Were they less inevitable, they would still be useful, for 
everybody knows how much light is derived from synonyms 
— from, putting, that is to say, the same truth into new 
words. 



PREFACE. 



XVll. 



It is surprising, how much real ignorance is to be found 
among not a few habitual readers of the Bible, so that, if 
singly asked, ' Understandest thou what thou readest ?' 
they would suddenly be roused to the consciousness, how 
imperfect was their knowledge of the meaning of words 
with which they had been familiar from childhood; for 
nothing is more delusive, than this external familiarity with 
the mere garb of |^hought, the language and nothing more. 
The mind, under the benumbing spell of these incessant 
repetitions of old words, may have come to perceive 
vaguely or not at all their import; so that an important 
point is gained, if, startled by the strangeness of new 
phraseology, this slumber of the faculties is broken. For 
nothing profits, unless it is understood. 

It may be reckoned among the advantages of the poeti- 
cal form that it necessitates these explanatory changes. 
Owing, moreover, to the fact, that the poetic diction is 
naturally allied to the antique style of the Received Version, 
and shares its aloofness from everyday speech, a Poetic Life 
may fairly claim this as weighing in its favor, against the 
exclusive pretensions of Prose. This matter of literary 
perspective is not a thing to be slighted. An object can be 
too close to the eye, A certain remoteness is favorable for 
right vision. No writer, without necessity, would wish to 
cut himself off from the benefit to be derived from this 
source. But in the present case, the haze of distance 
b 



xviii. PREFACE. 

would not be the only gain, could the writer, when he had 
transported himself back to the time when our matchless 
English Version was first made, so far catch the spirit of the 
age, as to animate and mould his diction into some likeness 
of the prevailing form — for, by so doing, he might hope to 
appropriate a portion of that favor accorded to the sweet- 
ness and charm of that Version so dear to all hearts. 

There is a fashion in Verse no less th^n in dress. The 
reigning mode of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries dif- 
fered from that of the seventeenth and eighteenth. The 
earlier mode was characterized by a greater naturalness, 
variety and freedom — " robes loosely flowing," a graceful 
negligence, " a wild civility," not unfrequently more be- 
witching, 

" Than when art 
Is too precise in every part." 

The later mode is chiefly distinguished from this, by hav- 
ing no lines overlapping and running into each other, but 
each complete in itself; weighed as well as measured; a 
nice adjustment and balancing of parts; a rigid properness 
and stateliness, and a strictness of etiquette, requiring you 

" Still to be neat, still to be drest 
As you were going to a feast." 

This kind of Verse in long poems is apt to tire from its mo- 
notony ; and, owing to its artificial structure, is particularly 



PREFACE. xix. 

unfavorable, in translating, to exactness and fidelity. The 
earlier mode was therefore chosen, both because of its con- 
temporaneousness and its greater suitableness for his pur- 
pose. 

Lessing is undoubtedly right in considering, that the 
Gospels are immortal masterpieces, which it would be vain 
to hope to rival. " Who," he asks, " after the Evangelists 
will venture to write the Life of Jesus ?" So far from dis- 
senting from this view, it is the writer's own ; and therefore 
it is, that he has studiously avoided the slightest departure 
from those divine originals. He has reverently and faith- 
fully followed them word by word, line by line, verse by 
verse, chapter by chapter, each Gospel apart and the four 
together. At the same time, he has been glad to avail him- 
self of the labors of those (Robinson in particular) who 
have devoted much time and study to the necessary task of 
rearranging, blending and harmonizing the statements of 
the Inspired Four, without which a complete and consecu- 
tive Life were impossible. The Evangelists wrote in Greek. 
Of course, the great critic could not have intended to in- 
terdict translations; nor w^ould he mean to say that there 
should be no new versions. A new version is not a new Life 
nor a different one. While no version can have the author- 
ity of the Greek Original, still in view of the great excel- 
lence of our Protestant Version, its claim to consideration 
is hardly inferior. The writer, taking this for a basis, has 



XX. PREFACE. 

sought to preserve unaltered, as far as possible, its abound- 
ing felicities of expression; to retain, as it has been itself 
so successful in retaining, the unstudied simplicities and sin- 
cerities of the Sacred Story; to imitate the swift brevities 
of a record, which finds means to crowd into the narrow 
compass of a few pages the prodigious fulness of an un- 
paralleled Life and Mission. Aiming at something higher 
than merely chopping up prose into rhymed couplets, he 
has labored to combine, with his attempt to weave into a 
seamless oneness the Fourfold Gospel, an exegetical pur- 
pose, making his work interpretative like a Commentary. 
In the spirit of loyalty to the Greek Original as well as to 
the English Version he was careful to consult both; and 
to avail himself of such critical helps as were within his 
reach, in order that he might get at the right meaning and 
the exact shade of meaning. In performing a task so deli- 
cate and difficult, it would have been unpardonable not to 
have done so. 

Great and good men for many hundred years, having 
given their lives to the study and explanation of these Divine 
Writings, it would be strange, if their learned labors had 
not yielded some fruit worth the gathering. Besides what 
has come down to us from the past, the modern press is 
teeming with new publications of the greatest value, all 
having reference to one great central Figure. The shelves 
of our libraries groan with the weight of voluminous Com. 



PREFACE. xxi. 

mentaries — conspicuous among these is a most painstaking 
and excellent one (Stier's) consisting of nine large volumes 
devoted to '' The Words of Jesus " alone. The entire field 
having been found too large for cultivation, it has been di- 
vided into sections, one of which is given to "The Miracles of 
Our Lord," another to " The Parables," etc., forming books 
of ample size — the last few months having added two 
more on the Parables to those already existing. During 
the last decade the Lives of Christ have multiplied as never 
before, eloquently written and rich in information. 

With these sources of knowledge and help open to him, it 
would seem that he ought to have been well equipped for 
his undertaking; and that his only difficulty would be the 
embarrassment arising from abundance. But while he en- 
deavored to glean from all these fields, what was adapted 
to throw light upon the Sacred Text, he aimed to make 
all subservient to a textual, not a glossarial, enrichment, 
and a completer setting forth, elucidation and unfolding of 
the entire Gospel story in unadorned verse, relying on the 
intrinsic beauty and grandeur of the theme for awakening 
interest, making a book, which should be at once a Life and 
a Commentary, that could be easily read in a few sittings. 
Any attempt to add to or take from the sacred narrative, ex- 
cept in the way of elucidation, he felt w^as a kind of impiety. 
Besides, he saw no occasion for any profane inventions. 
Nothing was wanting to completeness in respect to plan or 



xxii. PREFACE. 

material. It has its own beginning, middle and end, and 
all needful machinery within itself. To seek to refashion 
it according to heathen models was, therefore, he consid- 
ered, to place the human above the divine; and was sanc- 
tioned neither by religion nor taste. 

A writer setting out to produce an Epic Poem of which 
Christ should be the Hero, his first step, in conform.ity with 
all custom, is from the region of Truth into that of Fable. 
The Muse, to be sure, is now no longer tethered and held 
down by reality: but while in this there may be some poeti- 
cal gain, it cannot be denied that this ampler freedom has, 
in this case particularly, a most serious drawback; for un- 
happily, the ornaments of fiction tend, as has been repeat- 
edly said, to give to truth itself the appearance of fable. 
It is difficult for those, not under the dominion of classical 
prejudice, to become wholly reconciled to the introduction 
of these heathenisms, or any modification of them, into a 
Christian Poem. At best, they belong to another age, and 
deserve to become obsolete. Poetry loses nothing by the 
rejection of these pedantic fopperies — the cast-off finery of 
former times; and the substitution of a direct and manly 
utterance for glittering prettinesses, insincerities and affec- 
tations. Even Virgil's, 

" Oceanum interea surgens Aurora reliquit — " 
is a round-about and pretty way of saying that the sun 



PREFACE. xxiii. 

rose, but is not necessarily more poetical than the statement 
of the fact in plain words. 

Examples of the Epic, with Christ for the subject, are 
not wanting. One of the earliest and most famous of these 
is Vida's ^ ' Christ i ad, m Six Books," written, we are told, in 
the purest Virgilian Latin, and " first published in the year 
1535, with an apologetical advertisement at the close of the 
work, in which the author excuses the boldness of the at- 
tempt by informing the reader, that he was induced to be- 
gin and to persevere in his undertaking by the solicitations 
and munificence of the two pontiffs Leo X. and Clement 
VII."* Vida was born at Cremona; and it is to his " Chris- 
tiad " that Milton refers in the fourth line of the fourth 
verse of his poem on "The Passion:" 

" Loud o'er the rest Cremona's trump doth sound." 

It is mentioned as one of the merits of his work that "he 
avoids the error of mingling the profane fables of the 
heathen mythology with the mysteries of the Christian Re- 
ligion," by which, however, is not meant that he dispenses 
with all fiction. A specimen of the Poem may be seen in 
the following extract, descriptive of the descent of the 
Holy Ghost as a dove at the baptism of Jesus: 

" Protinus aurifluo Jordanes gurgite fulsit; 
Et superum vasto intonuit domus alta fragore. 

*Roscoe's Life of Leo X. 



xxiv. PREFACE. 

Insuper et coeli claro delapsa columba est 
Vertice per purum candenti argentea pluma 
Terga, sed aurati circum et rutilantibus alis: 
Jamque viam late signans super astitit ambos, 
Coelestique aura pendens afflavit utrumque. 
Vox simul et magni rubra genitoris et aethra 
Audita est nati dulcem testantis amorem." 

Christiad IV., 214-222. 

In German, we have Klopstock's "Messiah, in Fifteen 
Books,'' which came to be regarded, by many of his own 
countrymen at least, as an Epic equal to those of Dante, 
Milton and Tasso. In English, Samuel Wesley, the father 
of John and Charles, wrote " The Life of Christ, a Heroic 
Poem., in Ten Books,'' more remarkable, it is thought, for 
piety and learning than poetic merit; although it did not 
want admirers among contemporaries. 

The only other attempt of this kind known to the writer 
is "The Christiad, a Divine Poem," by Henry Kirk White. 
It was a work, it seems, that lay very near the poet's heart, 
and he touchingly laments in a couple of stanzas appended 
to the unfinished work, written a short time before his 
death, that he should not live to complete it. His biogra- 
pher, Southey, while praising the Fragment as evincing 
great power in its execution, nevertheless objects to it, for 
the reason already adverted to, that "the mixture of myth- 
ology makes the truth itself appear fabulous." 

A common cause of failure in this and other undertak- 
ings, no doubt, is over-ambition. Did we not know that what 



PREFACE. XXV. 

is simple and what is obvious is apt to be despised or over- 
looked, we should be at a loss to explain why some poet 
qualified for the undertaking, has not long ere this, dis- 
carding fiction and the high heroic method, been tempted, 
out of the sufficient and matchless materials supplied in the 
authentic memorabilia contained in the Four Gospels, to 
compose a True Life instead of a partly false one. It can 
hardly be pretended, that the reason for such a Life remain- 
ing so long among "things unattempted," is its unfitness 
in that naked shape for poetic treatment. If a noble life 
purely human, as Milton imagines, is of itself a true poem, 
surely a Life divinely perfect like that of Christ cannot be 
less; and the supposition that it stands in need of fictitious 
aid to make it beautiful is wholly inadmissable. 

The writer is not sure, that it will be accepted as an 
apology for his temerity, that, believing in the utility of 
such a work, he ventured because there was no one else to 
venture. Having observed that verse lent itself wonder- 
fully to the requirements of brevity and strength, he knew 
no reason why it should not be used in unfolding the un- 
speakable uniqueness of that Divine Personality, manifested 
both in the sphere of speech and conduct, with which we 
are made familiar in the Gospels. Painting and Sculpture 
have done their best; but neither pencil nor chisel has been 
able to produce anything better than a lifeless copy of the 
Divine Original. But portrayed in the pages of the Four 
Evangelists, the picture lives : 



xxvi. PREFACE. 

" Let be, let be ; 
What was he that did make it ? See, my lord, 
Would you not deem it breathed, and that those veins 
Did verily bear blood?" 

He did not hide from himself the difficulties or dangers of 
the undertaking; or his individual unfitness to execute it 
worthily. If, as Cowper says, "A just translation of any 
ancient poet in rhyme is impossible, since no human in- 
genuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet 
with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the 
full sense and only the sense of the original," how could he 
hope to succed in a work, certainly not less difficult, and 
infinitely more delicate — owing to the sacredness of the 
matter — that of turning the plain prose of the Gospels into 
easy rhyme, without injury to the sense or expression ? Had 
he shared m the opinion that it was impossible, he would, 
of course, have abstained from an attempt, which imposed 
not only the duty of fidelity to the sense, but such a literal- 
ness of rendering and preservation of the precise diction 
of the English version, as that the likeness should be per- 
ceptible to the ear as well as to the understanding. 

As in music, amid the most complex variations, the 
original melody is perpetually suggested; so, to meet the 
ideal requirement, his poetical reproduction would need in 
the reading, to be resonant with the voices and echoes 
of the prose original, more or less distinctly heard in every 



PREFACE. xxvii. 

line. He dare not hope that he has achieved more than a 
moderate success; but did he suppose that he had failed to 
do fair justice to the letter and spirit of the sacred narrative, 
equal to what would be attainable in prose, he would not 
be justified, he considers, in publishing. It is an experiment 
which he felt was worth the making just for the once. It 
has cost him a good deal of time and labor which if thrown 
away, he cannot help it. It will be his own less, not that 
of the critic nor the public. 

A single word in regard to another point. The writer 
considers, that a man's utterances ought to be his own, and 
not another's. Unless he has something to say, it is his 
duty to keep silent. The timidity, that limits itself to 
parrot-like repetitions of what has been said ten thousand 
times, is of little account. So long as we speak sincerely, 
we may speak boldly, and the more boldly, because the 
right of dissent is inherent. A conscientious man would 
hardly dare to speak at all, if he knew that all he said 
would be received as unquestionable truth. He is honestly 
glad that, if he is wrong, everybody is at liberty to show it. 
The writer, having ventured in some cases to deviate from 
received interpretations, he congratulates himself that they 
will carry with them no weight outside of the reasons that 
accompany them. He firmly believes that the interests of 
truth have suffered from no one cause more than from the 
authority of great names. 



xxviii. PREFACE. 

Upon the general question of the propriety and suita- 
bleness of scriptural subjects for poetry, the opinion of 
Cowley even in our day is entitled to some weight. He 
says: "All the books of the Bible are either already admir- 
able and exalted Poesy, or are the best materials for it." 

As bearing on questions which have been much discussed, 
touching the authenticity of the Gospels and the reality of 
the Divine«L,ife they portray, we append the following re- 
markable admissions coming from men of the highest genius, 
whose value and force are, certainly, enhanced rather than 
diminished by the fact, that their authors have generally 
been classed with unbelievers. One cannot help honoring 
their candor, whatever may bethought of their consistency: 

*' I esteem the Gospels to be thoroughly genuine, for 
there shines from them the reflected splendor of a sublimity 
proceeding from the person of Jesus Christ of so divine a 
kind, as only the divine could ever have manifested upon 
earth." — Goethe. 

" I confess the majesty of the Scriptures astonishes me, 
and the holiness of the Gospel speaks to my heart. Behold 
the books of philosophy, with all their pomp, how small 
they appear beside this! Can it be, that a book at once so 
sublime and so simple, is the work of man ? Can it be, that 
He who forms its history is only a man ? What sweetness, 
what purity in His manners! What touching grace in His 
instructions ! What elevation in His maxims! What pro- 



PREFACE. xix. 

found wisdom in His discourses! What presence of mind! 
What fineness, what justness in His answers! What empire 
over His passions! Where is the man, where is the philoso- 
pher, who knows how to act, to suffer and to die without 
feebleness and without ostentation? When Plato painted 
his imaginary just man, covered with all the opprobrium of 
crime, and worthy of all the rewards of virtue, he gave an 
exact portrait of Jesus Christ. The resemblance is so 
striking and unmistakeable that all the fathers perceived 
it. What prejudice, what blindness, to compare the son of 
Sophroniscus with the son of Mary! What a distance one 
from the other! Socrates, dying without pain, without 
ignominy, sustained easily his part to the end. His death 
philosophizing tranquilly with his friends, is the sweetest 
that could be desired; that of Jesus, expiring in agony 
reviled, mocked, cursed by all the people, is the most hor- 
rible that could be feared. Socrates, taking the poisoned 
cup, blessed him who wept as he presented it to him; Jesus 
in the midst of frightful tortures, prayed for his infuriated 
executioners. Surely, if the life and death of Socrates 
were those of a philosopher, the life and death of Jesus 
Christ were those of a God! Shall we say that the Gospe, 
History is an invention ? My friend, it is not so easy to 
invent; and the facts concerning Socrates are not so well 
attested as those concerning Jesus Christ. Indeed, this 
were but to shift the difficulty without destroying it. It 



XXX. PREFACE. 

would be more inconceivable, that many men should have 
united to fabricate this book, than that one man should 
have furnished the subject of it. The Gospel has charac- 
ters of truth so grand, so striking, so perfectly inimitable, 
that the inventor of it would be more astonishing than the 
hero." — Rousseau. 

''I know men; and I tell you that Jesus is not a man. 
Everything in Him amazes me. His spirit outreaches 
mine, and His will confounds me. Comparison is impossi- 
ble between Him and any other being in the world. He is 
truly a being by Himself. His ideas, and His sentiments; 
the truth that He announces; His manner of convincing, 
are all beyond humanity and the natural order of things. 
His birth and the story of His life; the profoundness of His 
doctrine, which overturns all difficulties, and is their 
most complete solution; His Gospel; the singularity of His 
mysterious being; His appearance; His empire; His pro- 
gress through all centuries and kingdoms; — all this is to 
me a prodigy, an unfathomable mystery. I see here 
nothing of man. Near as I may approach, clearly as I may 
examine, all remains above my comprehension — great with 
a greatness that crushes me. It is in vain that I reflect — 
all remains unaccountable. I defy you to cite another life 
like that of Christ." — Napoleon. 

"Jesus Christ is in the noblest and most perfect sense 
the realized ideal of humanity." — Herder. 



PREFACE. xxxi. 

"Whatever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus 
will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young 
without ceasing. His legend will call forth tears without 
end; His sufferings will melt the noblest hearts; all ages 
will proclaim among the sons of men there is none born 
greater than Jesus." — Renan. 

"There once trod our earth a single being, who, by His 
sole moral omnipotence, controlled other ages, and founded 
an immortality peculiarly His own. He, gently blooming, 
and tractable to influences from on high, like the sunflower, 
but in His ardor and power of attracting, a sun. He, still 
with mildness of aspect, drew alike Himself, nations and 
ages to the universal and original sun. It is the meek 
spirit whom we call 'Jesus Christ.' If he was, then there 
is a Providence — or rather He was it." — Jean Paul 

RiCHTER. 

" The Life of Christ concerns Him, who being the holi- 
est among the mighty, the mightiest among the holy, lifted 
up with His pierced hand empires off their hinges, and 
turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still 
governs the ages." — Jean Paul Richter. 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



I. 

THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 

John ii. 23-25 ; iii. 1-21. 

^ I ^HE Incarnate Word of the Eternal Mind 
^ Unfolds His high credentials to mankind ; 
And manifests His glory hour by hour 
In gracious acts of Godlike love and power. 
At His command all sicknesses depart, 
And a new rapture springs up in the heart : 
The nerves, no more the avenues of pain, 
Thrill with the ecstasy of health again. 
With stupid wonder, men behold the sign, 
And half believe the miracle divine ; 
But, blind to its intent, they do not know 
The motive is not thaumaturgic show ; 



2 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

That His main mission is not to make whole ^-^^^ 

The mortal body, but th' immortal soul. 
With inattentive ears they hear Him tell, 
How sinful feet take hold of death and hell : 
How God sent down His Son in love and grace 
To seek and save a lost and ruined race. 

Though to His teacJiings deaf, His deeds awoke 
Hope of deliverance from the Roman yoke ; 
And, dallying with the false and vain surmise, 
He left for this His throne above the skies — 
Seeing the miracles He wrought each day 
During the Feast of the Passover,^ they 
Would Him have owned as the Messiah then, ^4 

And hailed Him King ; but He who knew all men, 

*The Hebrew year commenced with the first day of Nisan (Abib), "the month of 
flowers," corresponding nearly to our April, it being the month in which the Exodus 
took place. As the month was lunar, and its beginning was determined by the new 
moon at Jerosalem, the point of time necessarily varied. The day appointed for the 
Passover was the 14th, which made the Feast coincident always with the full moon. 
The Feast of Unleavened Bread included the Passover, and lasted seven days. It was 
customary however to apply the name of the Feast of the Passover to the whole period. 

We are told (Luke ii : 42), that Jesus when he was twelve years old 'went up with 
His parents to the Passover at Jerusalem, but whether in their yearly visits subse- 
quently He accompanied them is left to inference, the Evangelic record being silent 
as to what occurred during the eighteen years that followed. The present visit was 
the first Passover that He attended after the beginning of His public ministry ; the 
second is believed to have been " the Feast " mentioned at John v : i; the third hinted 
at John vii : i; ^.\v& fourth, when He was crucified, which would make the term of His 
ministry three years and more. The Jewish Passover answers to the Christian Easter. 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 

And needed not that any should Him tell John 

What was in man, their motives knowing well, 

Committed not Himself to them, whose aim 
Was foreign to the ends for which He came. 

A MAN of rank, a ruler of the Jews, lii. r, 

A Pharisee named Nicodemus,* whose 

• Nicodemus must have known of John's testimony concerning lesus for h„ 
p.o..^e„t memhe. of the ho., .ha. ha. sen. a .election on^f slon ^L J^.: 
W 'T^ '" proclaiming: .he near approach of the Reign of Helven 
--ho he was. and specifically, whether he was .he Christ or no. John had saVdtha" 
h dT: .r'fon' T "'^.'" "'^"*='=^' ''°°' ™''-™ '" *=^ -^it and then" 

Wor d Z^Co7b ' '°""'' ""° ""' " '"= '"'"■' °' J-- - •'>= Sav our of t 

tor himself, and he, havmg seen with his own eyes the miracles daily performed bv 
H,m w-as compelled to admit, that in view of such divine attestations and aZntica 
ttons there could be no doubt whatever that He was come from God ""'*'="'"''- 

In the .n.ervew which he now sought, while he did no. call aim so in express 
terms. H.s ,mmed,a.e and easy assumption of the charac.er of the Messiah occasioned 

Of the Kingdom Of oo;tha;hr;:;re\::r::x:fr:rar^^^^^^ 

when Te<;nc; tn^, • u- u ^^eicomed. What was his amazement, therefore 

.;K:rm::rr-^^^^^^^^^ 
reid-::=Sa?d=^ 

..aso„:tiii:r :re::Ci:rrarBrT""^"'T '^."^ 

«-as wtlful and per;.erse. heT::Cheft:rr::!e.rr ^^^^^^^ 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Divided mind, half convert to the right, j{°^ 

Brought him to Jesus secretly at night — 
Ashamed to come by day or else afraid — 
Addressed Him courteously, and frankly said : 



absurdum^ by an expansion on the literal side. The fact is he was far too acute, 
not to perceive that the words, however construed, whether naturally or spiritually, 
were confounding and subversive, striking at the foundations of all his most cherished 
beliefs. What could he say or do with every support swept from under his feet, and 
he left with nothing to stand on ? 

That his difficulty was not with the words taken literally, is evident from the fact, 
that after Jesus' explanation of His meaning, his perplexity and bewilderment con- 
tinued as before, finding expression in the helpless inquiry, ' How can these things 
be ?' His thoughts would seem to have run in this wise : " Is it so, can it be, that God 
is no respecter of persons ? that Jew and Gentile are placed precisely on the same 
footing ? Shall it avail me nothing that I am of the stock of Israel, a Hebrew of the 
Hebrews — as touching the law, a Pharisee ; as touching the righteousness of the law, 
blameless ? If henceforth there is to be no advantage to the Jew, and no profit in 
circumcision, what becomes of the promises, and the covenant with our fathers ? Has 
change happened to the Unchangeable?" 

His quick apprehension of the stupendous bearing of so leveling and humbling a 
doctrine does credit to his sagacity. He may not have seized its full significance. It 
is hardly possible that he should, for in that brief sentence lay a potency which was 
destined to "lift up empires off their hinges, and turn the stream of centuries into 
new channels, and govern the ages." It was the beginning of a new epoch; the first 
assertion of a principle that should revolutionize the world ; the inauguration of a 
Christian Democracy, the equality of all men before God, — feebly, imperfectly and 
even falsely apprehended in our own Declaration of Independence, and the Revolu- 
tionary watch-words. Liberie^ Egalite, Fraternite, of infidel France, — but which in 
its ultimate triumph is pledged to the abolition of all forms of tyranny — the tyranny of 
thrones, and the worse tyranny of caste — Brahminical and every other — and the estab- 
lishment on the earth of a true solidarity of Universal Brotherhood. 

Certain it is, that in this initial discourse of our Lord there is a most unreserved and 
ample disclosure of all the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, a marvellous epitome, 
in fact, of the whole Gospel in its redemptive universality. ' The Teacher come from 
God ' appears at once in the majesty of His character as The Light of the World, 
and puts in believing hands — 

"The golden key 
Which opes the palace of eternity." 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 5 

'' Rabbi ! Thou art a Teacher come, we know, J^^'^ 
From God, for this Thy wondrous doings show." 

Jesus, discerner of his thoughts, replied : 3 

" That which concerns you most I will not hide. 
Since I'm a Teacher come from God, hear then 
The Faithful and True Witness,* the Amen ! 
Unless reborn^ no man, whate'er his birth, 
Can see the Reign of God upon the earth. '"^ 

^Rev. iii. 14. '' i Peter i. 23, 

* Daniel in one place (ii. 44), speaks of an indestructible Kingdom, which the God of 
Heaven would set up ; in another place (vii. 13, 14), of an universal and everlasting 
Kingdom, to be given to One like the Son of Man. So the Prophet Micah (iv. 6, 7), 
predicts a time when Jehovah would reign over the people in Mount Zion forever. 
Evidently from this Old Testament source comes the title, ' the Kingdom of God,' 
' the Kingdom of Heaven,' (the Heavens, Gr.) or, ' the Kingdom,' simply — found in the 
New Testament, having common reference to the predicted Reign of Messiah the 
Prince (Dan. ix. 25). The Greek word, ij f3aacXEia, translated 'the kingdom,' means 
also * reign.' Strictly speaking the English word, kingdom^ refers solely to ^& place or 
region wheie the sovereignty is exercised, while reign has reference to the thne or 
duration of it : Hence we say. The Kingdom of England and the Reign of Queen 
Elizabeth. While we can properly speak of a Reign as approaching, we can hardly 
do so of a Kingdom. In view of this admitted two-fold signification of the original, 
ample justification is afforded for the substitution of Reign for Kingdom, whenever it 
better suits the context and perspicuity calls for it. 

George Campbell's rendering of the clause, " He cannot see the Kingdom of God," 
is, " He cannot discern the Reign of God"— the thing predicated being man's inca- 
pacity, without a spiritual renewal, to perceive the Reign of God, so that even though 
the Reign had commenced, he would not be able to discover it, because spiritual 
things are only discerned by the spiritual. If a threat had been intended, no doubt 
the phrasing would have been future, and we should have had, "He shall not see 
[share or enjoy] the Kingdom of God." In the fifth verse, where the word "enter" 
occurs to modify the conception, the Kingdom of God would seem to be the fitter ren- 
dering. Seeing, and entering are, no doubt, closely connected, inasmuch as a right 
idea of the Kingdom must precede the participation and enjoyment of it. 

The word avcJi^ex', translated ' again,' is more literally rendered '■frotn above^ 



6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Said Nicodemus : " Thy strange speech unfold — -[i-^'^ 
How can a man be born when he is old ? 
Can he return into his mother's womb 
And be reborn, and a new life assume?" 

And Jesus answering said : " Thou as a Jew s 

Canst claim no natural birth-right as thy due. 
The Holy Kingdom of which I am King 
Is not a secular and earthly thing — ^ 
Comes not with observation^ — no man's eye 
Its near and powerful coming can descry — 
No hosts are seen with banners high unfurled 
In onward march for conquest of the world — 
Not of this world, but pure and from above, 
A theocratic government of love — 
Regeneration of the soul within — 
Emancipation from the power of sin, 

^Johnxviii. 36. •> Luke xvii. 20, 21. 

\from heaven'' ; but the first is generally preferred as agreeing best, it is thought, with 
Nicodemus' words used in reply, "Can he enter a second time," etc. This, however, 
is not conclusive, for if the asseveration had stopped at, " Except a man be born" — the 
"second time" would be implied in the word 'born,' even if 'again' were not ex- 
pressed, as any future birth would necessarily be a second birth. It is possible that 
his mind was so filled with the idea of being born, that he lost sight of everything 
else. Of ccrurse, he knew if it took place, it must be a divine act, /. ^., 'from above,' 
and therefore he may not have cared to emphasize that, as his chief difficulty did not 
lie so much in being born from above as in being born at all. 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. j 

Transcending nationality and place,'' jf°^ 

It knows no limits but the human race.^ 
To Jew no more than Greek "" is title given 
To the exclusive citizenship '^ of heaven. 

" Native to no immunities ol birth, 
My subjects are the good ^ of all the earth, 
Of every land the foot of man has trod — 
Born not of blood but of the will of God/ 
For what is born of flesh is flesh ; and what ^ 

Is spirit is spiritually begot. 

So marvel not at what I said to thee, 7 

Ye* must be born again before that ye 
Are qualified to enter that unseen 
Kingdom of all the sanctified and clean — 
Proud Israel like the rest. The viewless wind ^ 

Blows where it will in freedom unconfined ; 
Thou hear'st the sound thereof, and feel'st the force. 
But canst not tell the secret of its source. 
So every one, with Heaven no more at strife, 

*Matt. xxviii. 19; Mark xvi. 15. ^ Luke xxiv. 47. *' Rom. x. 12. 

<^Gal. iii. 28 ; Phil. iii. 20. « Acts x. 34. f John i. 13. 

*Here as elsewhere, in the change from the singular to the plural, the version follows 
the original — the plural both in the first and second persons having reference probably 
to his representative character. 



8 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

In whom the Spirit breathes the breath of life, {^^^ 

Knows not, once dead in trespasses and sins,'' 

Whence comes the breath, or how the Ufe begins — 

Born of the travail of a holy Grief, 

The quickening- process of a true Belief — ^ 

Of which baptism is the watery sign — 

Symbol of cleansing, and a birth divine : 

The washing of regeneration,^ most 

Wondrous renewing of the Holy Ghost. 

John, My forerunner, has proclaimed the need 

Of something more than being Abraham's seed. 

Shaken the desert with the warning cry : 

* Repent ! the righteous Reign of Heaven is nigh.'*^ 

Ye must be born of water — not which flows 

In earthly channels, this no virtue knows — 

But of that water I to men impart, 

Which springs to life eternal ^ in the heart. 

Born of the Spirit differs not from this ; 

They must be pure who are the heirs of bliss. 

To all who ask^ by unresj>ecting Heaven 

This universal Gift is freely given." 

Said Nicodemus: " How can these things be ? " ^ 

*Eph. ii. I ; Col. ii. 13. ^ i Peter i. 23 ; i John v. i. « Titus iii. 5 ; Eph. v. 26. 
•^Matt. iii. 2. « John iv. 14. ^Lukexi. 13. 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. g 

And Jesus answering said reproachfully : JP^^^ 

" Art thou the teacher,* specially ordained, 
And need'st to have these simple truths explained ? 
We speak that which we know, and only state " 

What we have seen, and yet ye hesitate. 
If I have told you earthly things and near, '= 

Plain mundane matters of this lower sphere, 
And ye believe not, prejudiced and blind. 
And stumble at My word with doubting mind. 
How will ye credit Me, when I report 
Things of a higher range and heavenly sort, — 
The mighty secrets of the Eternal Throne, 
Unseen, unheard of, ne'er conceived,^ unknown ? 
The power to climb to no man has been given, ^3 

Th' inaccessible and holy heaven : 
But in Eternity and Time I dwell, — 
The Son of God, and Son of Man as well, — 
In both worlds present, nothing from Me hid. 
The Father purposed or the Father did. 
By pity moved, I have come down to tell 
How sinners may escape profoundest hell : 

* I Cor. ii. 9. 

*We are told that the chief officers of the Sanhedrim were a President, Vice-Presi- 
dent and ' the Teacher'' or Wise Man. Nicodemus is supposed to have been the latter, 
which accounts for our Lord's use of the definite article found in the original. 



10 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



John 
iii. 14 



" As Moses lifted up for healing sight 
The serpent to the bitten Israehte, 
So shall the Son of Man uplifted be, 
Made sin that kneAv no sin,"" for remedy ; 
That none may perish who on Him believe, ^^ 

But pardon and eternal life receive. 
For God so loved the world of man, He gave ^^ 

His sole begotten Son from death to save. 
He did not send His Son to judge the race, '7 

But on an errand of redeeming grace. 
He that believes is judged not for this cause ; ^^ 

He that believes not has by righteous laws 
Been judged already for transgressions done, 
Still more for grace rejected in the Son. ^^ 

This is the judgment, when is come the light. 
Men love the darkness and prefer the night, 
Because their deeds are evil. Who does ill, ^^ 

He hates the light, avoids the light, and will 
Not come thereto, in unacknowledged fear 
Lest his iniquity should be made clear. 
But he that does the truth, that all may see ^^ 

His works are wrought in God, comes joyfully." 

^2 Cor. V. 21. 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. n 



HYMN. 

Almighty God ! how small 

The accidents of birth ; 
Thine equal eye looks down on all 

Who dwell upon the earth. 

Who dwell upon the earth, 
The Gentile and the Jew, — 

All men alike, wherever found. 
Thy Spirit must renew. 

Thy Spirit must renew. 

Proud boasts of blood are vain ;— 
The lips of Truth to all declare, 

* Ye must be born again.' 

Ye must be born again. 
There is exception none ; 

Enlightened eyes alone can see 
The Kingdom of Thy Son. 



j2 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

The Kingdom of Thy Son 
Set up the soul within, 

A heavenly rule of purity 
To make an end of sin. 

To make an end of sin, 

The work of grace complete, 

Inclining evermore the will 
To make obedience sweet. 

To make obedience sweet 
On us Thy Spirit shed ; 

O Holy Ghost, requicken us 
And raise us from the dead ! 

And raise us from the dead- 
Baptismal grace convey, 

And bless the water of the Word 
To wash our sins away. 

To wash our sins away 
' True penitence impart ; 

And make us on the Crucified • 
Beheve with all the heart. 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 

Believe with all the heart 

Thou verily didst give 
Thy Son to die upon the cross 

That guilty souls may live. 

That guilty souls may live, 
And Christ not die in vain, 

May man, once in Thy likeness made, 
Thine image bear again. 

Thine image bear again, 

Original and whole, 
Enstamped upon his breast and brain, 

And mirrored in his soul. 

And mirrored in his soul, 

As in a lakelet lie 
The pictured purity and peace 

And glory of the sky. 



13 



J4 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



11. 

JOHN'S FINAL TESTIMONY. 

John hi. 22-36. 



John 
iii. 22 



LEAVING Jerusalem, His heart aflame, 
■^ Jesus with His disciples elsewhere came 
Into Judea, tarried there and taught. 
And there baptized, and works of mercy wrought. 
For that John also was baptizing, there ^3 

In ^non near to Salim, region where 
There was much water needful to baptize. 
The two baptisms chanced to synchronize— 
For John was not imprisoned yet. Arose ^4 

Therefore a question on the part of those, ^5 

Who John's disciples were, about the true 
Manner of purification with some Jew.* 
And so they said to John : 

'' Rabbi, decide ! ^^ 

He who was with thee on the other side 

* The Revised Version adopts the singular. 



JOHN'S FINAL TESTIMONY. 15 

Of Jordan, and to whom thou, since as then, ^^^^ 

Bor'st Avitness, lo, baptizes, and all men 
Come thronging unto Him instead of thee — 
He from our fastings sets His followers free."^ 



'* 



Th' unjealous John rebuking answer made — --^ 

With frank and noble truthfulness he said : 
^' A man can naught receive except as given 
By the supreme authority of Heaven. 
Ye bear me witness, that I witness bore, ^^ 

I am not the Messiah, but before 
Him sent, His joyful coming to make known. 
He is the Heavenly Bridegroom, He alone ; ^9 

He has the bride ; I am the Bridegroom's friend, 
Who, hearing Him, rejoices without end 
Because of His dear voice. This Heaven me willed, 
And this my joy therefore is now fulfilled. 
He must increase while endless ages run ; 30 

I must decrease, for now my work is done. 

* We are told (Mark ii. 18, and Luke v. 33), that the disciples of John fasted, and 
that the disciples of Jesus did not. May it not have been, therefore, that John en- 
joined fasting in connection with his baptism, and that its necessity as a concomitant 
of baptism formed the subject of dispute with some Jew who had been baptized by 
Christ's disciples without this fasting accompaniment? In the recently discovered 
document, ^"The Teachingofthe Twelve Apostles,''' it is there enjoined that "the hs.^- 
^\z&d,/ast for two or three days before baptism " — a practice which may possibly have 
been borrowed from John. We know the undue importance attached to fasting by 
the Pharisees ; and the revival of this custom under the Christian Dispensation may 
be regarded as one of the many evidences of the early working of the Judaic leaven. 



l6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



John 
iii. •^i 



He heavenly is, who is of heavenly birth ; 

And earthly he whose origin is earth. 

To earthly life but earthly speech is given ; 

High above all is He who speaks from Heaven. 

He testifies what He has seen and heard, 32 

And no man takes the warrant of His word. 

Who has received His witness, has set to 33 

His own believing seal that God is true. 

For He, who is God's own Ambassador, 34 

Speaks but the words of God, and cannot err 

God not by measure does the Spirit dole, 

But gives to Him th' immeasurable whole. 

The Father loves the Son, and in His hands 35 

Has put all peoples, governments and lands. 

He that believes on His beloved Son 36 

Has everlasting life on earth begun : — 

He that believes not, life he shall not see. 

But on him rests God's frown unceasingly." 



JOHN'S FINAL TESTIMONY. 17 



THE HEAVENLY BRIDEGROOM. 

The fond youth thinks the maid he loves 
Sums all the beauty of the land ; 

But what of Him who shaped her brow, 
And ' the white wonder of her hand ' ? 

The earth and sky no doubt are fair, 
And ravishing to soul and sight : 

But fairer He who made them fair, 
And gave us organs of delight. 

The violet and the rose are sweet, 

But there 's a sweetness more intense — 

His sweetness, who Arabias made 
And odorous hills of frankincense. 

When from His orient chamber comes 
The Heavenly Bridegroom — bashful slips 

Behind a cloud the risen sun. 
Conscious of a divine eclipse. 



i8 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Thou, who art the Spouse of souls, 
With curtains of my window drawn, 

1 watch with weary Hds to catch 

The earUest glimpses of Thy dawn. 

Dear absent Lord, make swift return ! 

My hungry heart faints from delay— 
Rise, Sun of Righteousness, now rise. 

And turn my night to happy day ! 




THE DIALOGUE AT JACOB'S WELL. iq 



III. 

THE DIALOGUE AT JACOB'S WELL. 

John iv. 1-42. 

WHEN the Lord knew, His first and fiercest foes, 
The Pharisees, were plotting to oppose — \^^^ 
Their minds inflamed with envy, having heard 
That Jesus, through His miracles and word. 
Was making and baptizing even more 
Disciples than was John, their dread before, 
(Although baptizing not Himself but His ^ 

Disciples) — He, who perfect wisdom is. 
Departed from Judea to go back 3 

To Galilee. As lying in His track, 4 

He needed to pass through Samaria, 
So came to Sychar, near which city lay s 

A plot of ground, old Jacob's present rare 
To his son Joseph.' Jacob's Well was there. ^ 

Here by the Well's side Jesus found a seat. 
Welcome to journeying and weary feet. 



20 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



John 
iv. — 



The hour was sultry noon. He sat alone, 

Hungry and thirsty, His disciples gone s 

To buy food in the city. While away, 

A certain woman of Samaria 7 

Came to draw water. Jesus gently said : 

" Give Me to drink !" 

The woman answer made : ^ 
" How is it Thou, a Jew, thus civilly. 
Dost ask the favor of a drink of me, 
A scorned Samaritan ?"* For Jews she knew 
With the Samaritans have naught to do. 

* The Samaritans, as we learn from 2 Kings xvii., were originally Assyrian colonists, 
made up of five idolatrous nations worshipping different gods, introduced after Israel 
was led away captive, B. C. 730. From being idolaters they became in course of time 
extremely zealous for the Mosaic law and ritual. Of the Sacred Writings they ac- 
knowledged the Pentateuch alone. Ignoring their heathen origin, they had come to 
claim descent from Joseph through Ephraim, to which some color was given by prob- 
able intermarriages with the native Israelites — a claim, however, which was con- 
temptuously rejected by the Jews, who were accustomed to speak of them as Cuthoeans 
or Cuthites — a part of the original settlers having come from Cuthan, a place in the 
interior of Persia. The bitter feud, which had existed for centuries, was in full force 
in the time of Christ. In the mouth of a Jew the very name of a Samaritan was a re- 
proach ; and so, knowing no stronger form of objurgation, the maddened Jews at 
Jerusalem said to Jesus, " We know Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil." To take 
a mouthful of food which had been touched by a Samaritan was as defiling as eating 
the flesh of swine. No Samaritan was allowed to become a proselyte. They had been 
repeatedly anathematized and subjected to every form of excommunication. No bar- 
gain made with him was binding. His testimony was not to be taken in a Jewish 
court. To receive him into one's house would bring down the curse of Heaven. 

Jesus was infinitely superior to all this. Not only was His friendliness evinced on 
this occasion, but afterwards. When He cured the ten lepers, the only one who re- 
turned to thank Him was a Samaritan, or to use His own words, " this stranger " (an 
obiter dictzim^ implying a knowledge of his heathen non-Jewish origin, but mentioned 
only to emphasize His commendation). Another case in point is the beautiful Parable 
of the Good Samaritan. 



THE DIALOGUE AT JACOB'S WELL. 2I 

Jesus said kindly : '* Hadst thou known the gift ^^^^^ 
Of God, and Who it is, and what His drift 
Who asks, thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He 
Would living water have bestowed on thee." 

The woman answered : " Sir, deep is the Well, " 
And Thou hast naught to draw with. Whence then 

tell, 
Hast Thou that living water ? Art Thou more '^ 
Than Jacob was, our father, who of yore 
Gave us this Well, and hither used to come 
Himself, his sons, and herds, and drink therefrom ?" 

And Jesus said, His meaning to make plain : ^3 

'' Who of this water drinks shall thirst again. 
But whoso drinks of that which I shall give ^^ 

Shall never thirst : the same shall in him live, 
And be a well of water, springing rife 
From its deep source unto eternal life." 

The woman guessed, while quibbling with the sense,^s 
The words had mystic meaning and intense, 
But answered blindly : " Sir, give me, I pray. 
This water that I thirst not, neither may 
Come hither more to draw." 



22 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

He suddenly : /^^^^^ 

'' Go, call thy husband, and come here to Me !" 

'* I have no husband," blushingly she said, ^7 

An honest answer seeking to evade. 

Jesus replied : " Thou hast said well ; for thou 
Hast had five husbands ; he whom thou hast now '^ 
Is not thy husband. What thou say'st is true." 

Convinced by this, that this mysterious Jew '9 

Was come from God ; and being now awake 
To know her future welfare was at stake ; 
Solicitous to know, if she were wrong 
In what she trusted and believed so long 
As a Samaritan, she first professed 
• Her faith in Him, and Jesus thus addressed : 
'' That Thou a Prophet art I must believe, 
And therefore think Thou wilt not me deceive 
Our fathers worshipped in this mountain f ye -° 

Say in Jerusalem should men's worship be." 

* Gerizim is a mountain rising 2,500 feet above the level of the sea, and 800 feet 
above the surrounding plain, from the top of which can be seen the Mediterranean 
Sea on the West, the snowy heights of Hermon on the North, on the East the wall of 
the trans-Jordanic mountains, broken by the deep cleft of the Jabbok— a prospect 
unique in the Holy Land. It was memorable as the place designated by Moses for 
reading the blessings^ as the neighboring mountain Ebal was for the cursing (Deut. 



THE DIALOGUE AT JACOB'S WELL. 2^ 

'' Woman, believe Me," Jesus said to her, .J^^" 

' IV. 21 

" An hour is coming when no Avorshipper, 

Touching this mountain or Jerusalem, 

Shall deem the Father is confined to them. 

The God ye worship is a God half known,* 22 

The truth debased with fictions of your own. 

Although the Law of Moses ye respect. 

The Writings of the Prophets ye reject : 

The Oracles of God which ye refuse 

Are the divine possession of the Jews ; 

Whose are the promises, and promised Seed,^ 

Life and salvation which from Him proceed. 

^Rom. ix. 4, 5. 
xxvii. 12, 13). To the Samaritans it was the most sacred spot on earth. Legend had 
made it the seat of Paradise, whence all the streams that watered the earth flowed. 
Adam had been formed from its dust, and had lived on it. It was here he built his 
first altar. It was the Ararat on which the Ark rested, and where Noah offered sac- 
rifice. It was the Moriah where Abraham made ready to offer up Isaac ; and it was 
here he met Melchisedek. Here Jacob slept and dreamed of the heavenly ladder. 
Here Sanballat, the Cuthite, having obtained leave from Alexander the Great, built 
a rival Temple, which, after it had stood 200 years, was destroyed by Hyrcanus, 129 
years before Christ. Thitherward every Samaritan turned his face when he prayed. 
The Messiah, he believed, would first appear on its summit. No wonder he held it 
sacred. 

It is remarkable that while the Jews no longer offer up bloody sacrifices, the Paschal 
Lamb has not ceased to be offered on Mount Gerizim down to the present time. 
What Jerusalem is to the Jew, and Mecca to the Mahometan, Gerizim is to the 
Samaritan. 

* Owing to their rejection of all later revelations made through the Prophets, and 
the lingering superstitions derived from their heathen origin and intercourse, the wor- 
ship of the Samaritans was both ignorant and corrupt-they worshipping, like the 
ancient Athenians and some modern mystics, they knew not what-a God of uncertain 
or unknown attributes. 



24 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



John 
iv. — 



But this concerns the passing and the past, 

Things that wax old and were not meant to last. 

The hour is coming and is present now, 23 

When everywhere, true worshippers shall bow 

Knees of pure worship, and earth's common sod 

Be one vast Temple* dedicate to God. 

For such the Father seeks, who not in show, 

But truth and spirit worship Him below. 

God is a Spirit, nor can cheated be . 24 

By the mere mockery of the bended knee. 

He not in pomp and postures takes delight. 

But humble hearts, believing and contrite." 

The woman hints her thought : " I know full well ^s 
When Christ is come. He will us all things tell." 

Jesus replied ; " God has enlightened thee — ^^ 

Thou err'st not, 1 that speak to thee am He." 

While thus conversing. His disciples came, =^7 

Who saw with wonder not unmixed with blame 

* In ternplo vis orare ? in te ora, sed prius esto tejnplutti Dei. — Aug. 

In temple would'st thou pray ? 

Thou need'st not go abroad — 
Pray in thyself, but previously, 

A temple be of God ! 



THE DIALOGUE AT JACOB'S WELL. 25 

Their Master's condescension, doubly strange, iJ°^ 

Because it was not usual to exchange 

Speech with a woman, breaking laws beside, 

The birth of Jewish prejudice and pride. 

Yet no man said — deep awe might well deter — 

" What seekest Thou ? Why speakest Thou with her ?" 

The excited woman left her water-pot =8 

For the Lord's use, His asking not forgot, 
And went into the city, all on fire, 
Full of the news, and eager with desire. 
And said to every one she met: " Come, see ^9 

A man, who told me my whole history ! — 
Say, is not this the Christ?" And therefore they 30 
Went out to Him. 

While these were on the way — 31 
A thronging, dense, and waving multitude — 
All the disciples prayed Him to take food. 
Because just then sweet thoughts His spirit fed, 
He felt no appetite for common bread, 
So spake refusal : " I have food to eat 32 

Ye know not of. Ask ye who brought me meat ? 
My meat and joy it is to do the will 34 

Of Him who sent Me, and His work fulfill. 



26 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Say ye the harvest is four months away ?* i^^^35 

Lift up your eyes, look on the fields, for they 

Are white already. To My scattered seed, 

Behold, how quick a harvest doth succeed, 

That waits your reaping ! He that reaps 36 

Receives good wages in the garnered heaps 

Of golden fruit he gathers unto life 

Eternal, with celestial glory rife, 

His joy and crown"" forever — so that He 

Who sows, and he who reaps shall endlessly 

Rejoice together. For the saying 's true, 37 

*■ One sows, another reaps.' Lo ! I send you 38 

To reap the ripe results of others' toil. 

Who ploughed and planted and prepared the soil." 

Many of the Samaritans were led 39 

To trust because of what the woman said — 
'■ He told me all I ever did ' — and some 
Later believed when they had to Him come ; ^o 

»Phil. iv. I ; I Thess. ii. 19, 20. 

* If this is to be literally understood as referring to the actual harvest, it would make 
the time somewhere about December ; and would go to show that the Lord's stay in 
Judea had been about eight months. Noon in Palestine even in December is often, it 
is said, warm even to sultriness. 



THE DIALOGUE AT JACOB'S WELL. 27 

And many more, when they had further heard, i{°^^" 
Beheved on Him because of His own word : 
'' We know," they said — be sails to bear unfurled — 42 
*' This is the Christ, the Saviour of the World !" 



HYMN. 

John iv. 21-23 ; Acts xvii. 24-28. 

They err who think that God is far — 
That I must climb from star to star, 
Through mighty intervals of space. 
To reach His awful dwelling place. 

I put the shoes from off my feet ; 
I go not forth my God to meet ; 
For God is everywhere, and here. 
Here in this place to make it dear. 

Long time I groped and could not find, 
For light is darkness to the blind ; 
How sweet to feel now He is found, 
His everlasting arms around ! 



28 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Upon His bosom thus to rest, 
I cannot ask to be more blest. 
To know my sins are all forgiven 
For Jesus' sake, O this is heaven ! 

While I love Him, and He loves me, 
I care no other heaven to see : 
And, if there be some higher bliss, 
I am content while I have this. 

And there are those beyond the wave, 
Whom Christ came down on earth to save 
O let me haste to make it known. 
My God and Saviour is their own ! 



REJECTION AT NAZARETH. 29 



IV. 

REJECTION AT NAZARETH. 

John iv 43-54; Luke iv. 16-31. 

HIS two days' stay at Sychar ended, He j{,°^^^ 

Departed thence and entered Galilee — 
Avoiding Nazareth, because He knew 
According to the proverb it was true, 44 

A prophet has no honor in his home. 
Then when He into Galilee was come, ' 45 

The Galileans— having all things seen 
Done at Jerusalem, they having been 
Themselves at the Passover feast — received 
Him as a Prophet, and on Him believed. 
So Jesus came again to Cana where 46 

He made the water wine. A noble there 
Of Herod's household, hearing He had come, 47 

Asked Him to hasten to Capernaum, 
To heal his son,^ now at the point of death. 

Then Jesus said, with sad rebuking breath, 48 

* The definite article before son — in the origina-1 " the son of him " — indicates that it 
was an only son. 



30 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

" Except ye signs and wonders see, ye doubt — i{,°^J! 
Blessed is he who shall -believe without." 

The noble made inconsequent reply : 49 

*' Sir, come down quickly or my child will die." 

'' The boon thou askest," Jesus said, " I give ; so 
Go thou thy way, thy son shall surely live." 

The man believed the word, and, as he went, 
The servants met him, for the purpose sent, si 

To tell him his son lived. When told the hour s^ 

Of healing tallied with that word of power, 
Himself believed and all his house ; for none 53 

Doubted a mighty miracle was done. 

Divine the power, but with a higher aim 
Than to amaze by miracles he came. 
" O not for this was I sent forth," He said, ^^3^^ 

''But in your cities to proclaim instead. 
The Gospel of the Kingdom. Then begins ^^"• 

The Reign of Heaven when you forsake your sins." 
He taught in all their synagogues and preached. 
Honored of all. In His own time. He reached 
His native Nazareth — thus kindly late, ^^ 

To strip contempt, so quickly changed to hate, 
(Offspring of prejudice that shuts its eyes 
To worth famihar though it reach the skies) 



IV. 17 



Luke 
iv. 15 



REJECTION AT NAZARETH. 3 1 

Of all excuse, when to His well known name J;"'^ 

Was joined a wonderful and mighty fame. 

As was His custom, on the Sabbath day 
He went into the synagogue, and they 
Placed in His hands to read the sacred Scroll, '7 

Which he forthwith proceeded to unroll, 
And in Isaiah lighted on the place, 
Where were recorded those sweet words of grace : 

' The Spirit of the Lord upon Me rests ; ^^ 

And, by a heavenly unction. Me invests 
With power to preach glad tidings to the poor ; 
To heal the broken-hearted ; and assure 
DeHverance to the captives ; to restore 
Light to the blind ; and limbs, long bruised and sore. 
Broken with heavy fetters, to set free ; 
And sound the gracious Year of Jubilee.* ^9 

And rolling up the writing as before, ^o 

He to the servant handed it once more. 
And then sat down to teach* — in nothing odd 
Observing custom though the Son of God. 

All eyes were fastened on Him ; every ear 
In the whole synagogue was bent to hear. 

* The Rabbis always saf when teaching. 



32 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

'' This ancient Scripture," He began to say, iv"^i 

" Has in your hearing been fulfilled to-day." . . . 
The rest is wanting — those dear words of grace, ^^ 
At which each wondered, sitting in his place, 
Full of all comfort, mighty to convince, 
Worth all that has been said or written since. 

Ah, foolish Nazarenes ! had ye but known 
Your time of visitation, and not thrown 
Your golden opportunity away ! 
While with closed eyelids ye shut out the day. 
What wonder that ye stumbled at broad noon, 
Rejecting your Messiah, and the boon 
Of peace and pardon, life and liberty. 
And bliss extending through eternity. 
He offered and persuaded you to take ! 
Ye listened to the gracious words He spake, 
Bore witness to their power, and marvelled much, 
But all the while your hearts they failed to touch. 
Ye should have known Him best, for Him ye knew 
Through all those blameless years in which He grew 
In favor both with God and man. Ye saw 
In Him exemplified the breadth of law, 
The miracle of superhuman grace 



REJECTION AT NAZARETH. ^^ 

Stamped on His conduct, shining in His face. l;^^ 

Through all the years ye knew Him, testify 

If ye e'er heard those pure lips tell a lie. 

How durst ye then distrust His solemn word ? 

How doubt the truth of what ye must have heard ? 

How leaving Nazareth He straightway went 

Where John was warning all men to repent, 

Because the heavenly Reign of Christ was nigh. 

And was baptized in Jordan ? — How the sky 

Was rent asunder, what time from above 

The Holy Ghost descended as a dove 

And lighted on Him, while a Voice Divine 

Declared the meaning of the heavenly sign, 

Saying, ' Lo, this is My Beloved Son, 

Whom herewith I anoint, the Anointed One — 

Christ, by the investure of My Spirit's chrism. 

And consecrating rite of this baptism ! ' 

Though it be true, He is, as you aver, 

The Son of Mary, and a Carpenter, 22 

The hands that work, mechanical and mean. 

May in God's sight be honorable and clean. 

Than His credentials whose could be more clear? 

How foolish then and impious the sneer ! 

But yet more daring your insulting taunt — 
3 



34 



THE LIGHT OF THt. WORLD. 



I Luke 

iv. 23 



" Physician, heal Thyself, else vain Thy vaunt 
What we have heard done in Capernaum, 
Do also here, now Thou at last hast come ! 
Give Thy consent, and we will fix a day 
To give Thee chance for mountebank display — 
To work some miracle, that we may know 
Thou canst make God the puppet of a show ! 
Our claim is greatest, here Thy works repeat, 
Else we 're prepared to brand Thee as a cheat !" 

" So long as you exclude Me from your heart," 
The Saviour said, " I can no grace impart. 
All power to do you good away is swepf^ 
While you refuse the Prophet to accept. 
I come to your inhospitable door 
And ask admittance — what can I do more ? 
At the low portal, lo, I stand and knock — ^ 
I cannot pass unless I break the lock. 
Though Heaven is gracious, Heaven is sovereign too. 
Ye must not ask as if the least were due. 
On proud unthankful greed should God convey 
Ten thousand worlds, the gift were thrown away. 
God's grace and goodness never were confined 

^Matt. xiii. 58. ^Rev. iii. 20. 



REJECTION AT NAZARETH. ^5 

To a few bigots, but embraced mankind. ?-"^^ 

IV. — 

So He of old, His saving help made known 25 

Among the Gentiles, passing by His own. 

Be not puffed up ! I, of a truth, you tell, 

There many widows were in Israel, 

When reigned a famine o'er the land's extent 

To none of these yet was Elijah sent, 26 

But to a woman of Sarepta, who 

A Gentile was : And many lepers too 27 

Were living in Elisha's time, but none 

Was cleansed save Naiiman alone." 

They heard thus far, and then would hear no more.^^ 
And all was howling rage and wild uproar, 
No more a grave assembly but a mob. 
The turgid arteries were seen to throb 
In their flushed temples ; all their eyes shot fire ; 
Their frenzied blood was hot with one desire 
To kill Him instantly. They thrust Him out, =9 

And drag Him roughly by the nearest route 
To the hill's brow, whereon the city stood, 
To hurl Him headlong down. Though Jesus could 
Have palsied with all ease each lifted arm. 
And thus preserved Himself from threatened harm, 



36 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Luke 
iv. — 



He never exercised His matchless power 

To save Himself in danger's darkest hour. 

Goodness has majesty and fear and awe 

To cow the wretches that defy the law ; 

The knees of coward Guilt have often shook 

At the dissolving terror of a look. 

No form of outrage Jesus would resist, 

No menace and no malice of the fist, 

Till now, when putting on a sterner mien. 

He looked the God, and turned His eyes serene 

Upon His would-be murderers, who quailed 

And falling back let Him pass unassailed. 30 

Weep, Nazareth ! Thy endless loss deplore ! 
Thy unprized Lord shall dwell in thee no more ; 
In all thy habitations is dark night 
Now He is gone elsewhere who wa» thy light. 

And Jesus came, not pausing on the road, 31 

And in Capernaum fixed His abode. 



REJECTION AT NAZARETH. 



37 



The voice of Mercy calls aloud, 
But, deaf to all persuasion, 

Men, heedless of the offered grace. 
Let slip the one occasion. 

Alas ! that mortals should not know 

Their time of visitation, 
But, madly rushing down to death, 

Reject the great Salvation. 

When opportunity is past. 
And time returneth never, 

How sad to know, it might have been 
But shall not be forever ! 



The figure, veiled and sad, of Judea the Captive, on the Roman coin minted when 
Titus conquered Palestine, seems the image of a remorse that had wasted opportunity 
and of a despair that had cancelled grace."-WiLLiAM R. Williams D D 



38 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



V. 

ABODE AT CAPERNAUM.— APOSTOLATE. 

Matt. iv. 18-22; Mark: i. 16-20; Luke v. i-ii. 

/^^\ THOU to whom such happiness is given ! 

^^ Exalted thus above the towers of heaven ! 
Made now the stated dwelling place of Him, 
Whose radiant presence makes the daylight dim 
Thy humblest hovel and thy meanest street 
Shine with the lustre of His passing feet. 
With frequent coming every lowly door 
Is lovely with a light undreamt before. 
Hide thy diminished head, Jerusalem ! 
Rome, wear no more an eclipsed diadem ! 
Let haughty Cassar lay his sceptre by 
And here before a greater prostrate lie ! 
Lord of all worlds, He reigns by love alone ; 
Makes willing hearts the pillars of His throne ; 
Asserts His Godhead by forgiving sin. 
And throws His miracles of healing in ; 



ABODE AT CAPERNAUM— APOSTOLATE. 39 

Before th' omnipotence of heavenly grace 
Lo, Satan's empire totters to its base. 
Improve, Capernaum, thy honor well, 
Lest raised to heaven thou be cast down to hell ! 

Since all His mighty merits were designed 
To benefit and bless and save mankind ; 
His words of wisdom and His works of power 
Which crowded every day and every hour. 
Were meant for proof, not for Capernaum, 
But for all places, in all times to come ; 
'Twas needful Heaven some method should contrive, 
To keep the memory of these alive — 

Provide or find some healthy weft of nerve, 

» 

Keen to perceive and faithful to preserve 
Each fine pulsation of melodious breath, 
The tone and tint of everything He saith, 
That nothing may be lost — some honest ear, 
With scope of function open, chaste, and clear, 
To entertain the sweetness of that Voice, 
Which makes th' inhabitants of heaven rejoice, 
Discoursing wisdom, soothing hearts that ache 
With words of comfort such as man ne'er spake — 
Some eye to witness, and some hand to pen 



AQ THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

The mighty doings of this Man of men ; 
Unconscious skill and artless art to paint 
This more than Hero and this more than Saint ; 
Careful to let no single trait escape 
Of the Eternal God in human shape. 

So Jesus pleased to call and to ordain 
( Else he had mostly lived and died in vain ) 
Twelve men to the Apostleship, and sought 
The simple and the teachable untaught — 
Not lettered Scribe incorrigibly wrong — 
As those most fit to go with Him along, 
By day and night be with Him and abide, 
Eating with Him and sleeping by His side, 
Attendant on His footsteps to the end. 
To talk with Him as friend would talk with friend. 
Sit at His feet, and hear and keep in mind 
The sayings of the Oracle enshrined — 
Instructed thus, thus qualified to bear 
Authentic oral witness everywhere, 
While some should by th' imperishable page, 
Hand down the published grace from age to age. 

Behold Twelve Witnesses, no two the same, 
Unlike in mind and person as in name. 



ABODE AT CAPERNAUM— APOSTOLATE. 41 

While they agree in everything they say 

*Tis in a natural and human way — 

Like the Evangelists, who speak as Four 

In their own manner, and do nothing more. 

No matter that the infidel insists 

On contradictions in th' Evangelists, 

While the Evangel does itself contain 

No warring parts, then is th' objection vain — 

All beauty and perfection therein lie, 

All specks are in the scoffer's evil eye. 

The willing winds had borne His matchless fame, 
The pure report and wonder of His name, 
From o'er the Jordan to the Midland Sea, 
And from Judea unto Galilee. 
But hitherto, although on every side 
Disciples had increased and multiplied, 
Jesus, by no authoritative choice, 
Had called Him Prophets of the Pen and Voice ; * 
Till now the time had come to separate 
Fit persons wholly to th' Apostolate. 



*Rev. Wm. R. Williams, D.D., in his Lecture on John the Baptist aptly designates 
him as Prophet of the Voice in contradistinction from Prophet of the Pen. 



I 



42 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

As walking by the Lake's delightful shore ^^'^^^g 

He Simon saw ( whom He had named before 
Peter) and Andrew, Simon's brother — yet 
Plying their trade, about to cast a net 
Into the sea, for they were fishers. He 
Gave royal summons : '' Come ye after Me, ^9 

And I will make you, former skill to match, 
Fishers of men, immortal souls to catch ! " 
And they forsook their nets without delay, ^° 

And followed Him. Then He, a little way " 

Proceeding, saw two other brothers, James 
And John, the sons of Zebedee, — dear names 
Well-known already — mending nets ; and He ^^ 

Called them ; and they, their father Zebedee 
Left in the boat, and went, forsaking all, 
Swift to obey so powerful a call. 
Of His Apostles these elected four 
Were first and earliest, soon He added more. 



ABODE AT CAPERNAUM— APOSTOLATE. 43 

High thanks to Thee we owe, O Christ ! 

For Thy dear servants of the pen — 
Apostle and EvangeKst — 

Whereby Thou art made known to men. 

They tell us all Thou saidst and didst ; 

And all Thy glorious goodness show ; 
Make Thee a presence in our midst, 

Acting and speaking here below. 

We sit beside Thee at the sea ; 

We're made companions of Thy walk ; 
Our hearts within us burn, while we 

In silence listen to Thy talk. 

We learn the lesson of Thy looks, 
And are encouraged to draw near ; 

More than the lore of all the books. 
Thy welcome whispered in our ear. 

When Thy sweet lips forgiveness speak, 
And we can claim Thee as our Friend, 

Naught more in heaven or earth we seek, 
Our wants and wishes have an end. 



44 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



T 



VI. 

HEALER AND SAVIOUR. 

Mark i. 21-34: Luke iv. 31-41 : Matt. viii. 14-17. 

HEY went into Capernaum. Short rest ^^l^ 

Followed long labor, and He woke refreshed. 
And on the Sabbath, wrapt in holy thought. 
He came into the synagogue, and taught, ''^ 

Not as the Scribes, but with authority — 
And they were all astonished. Suddenly, ^3 

A frenzied shriek was heard, loud, piercing, shrill. 
Expressing terror, making hearts stand still — 
A demonical, unearthly cry — 
And when all turned to learn the reason why. 
There stood a maniac. His body shook ; 
Out of his eyes a demon seemed to look ; 
His features worked convulsively ; his speech 
Was less a voice, than an infernal screech 
Belonging to another — some foul fiend, 
That there mysteriously had introvened. 



HEALER AND SAVIOUR. 45 

Usurping function, putting powers of soul ^^^^ 

And body under devilish control — 

Using the passive organs as his own, 

Saying with borrowed breath, '' Let us alone ! ^^ 

For what have we to do with Thee ? Comest Thou 

Jesus of Nazareth to judge us now ? 

Drive us not hence with Thy destroying rod — 

I know Thee well, Thou Holy One of God ! " 

Jesus rebuked him, saying, " Hold thy peace ! ^s 
Come out of him ! " His power about to cease, 
The demon threw him down upon the floor ^^ 

With cries of rage, while wild contortions tore 
Each muscle of the frame, and strange grimace 
Gave hideous expression to the face. 
Then straightway all was peaceful and serene. 
How sweet is health ! how holy ! and how clean ! 

And they were all amazed at what occurred. ^7 

What truth of doctrine ! majesty of word ! 
Clothed with divine authority and power. 
Unwitnessed, unimagined till this hour — 
His high command the unclean spirits hear, ^^ 

And instantly obey with trembling fear. 



46 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Mark 
i. 29 



Leaving the synagogue, the five straightway 
Into the house of Simon went, where lay 
Abed the stricken mother of his wife, 3° 

Sick with a fever dangerous to hfe. 
And they on her behalf to Him appealed — 31 

The fever He rebuked and she was healed ; 
Then rising she with hospitable speed 
Prepared them food to satisfy their need. 32 

At the cool season of the setting sun. 
His hot career through torrid skies now run, 
They bring to Him all that are sick, and those 
Possessed with demons, and the concourse grows 
Till the whole city's gathered at the door. 33 

He many heals, and many demons more 34 

Casts out, not suffering them to testify, 
For that their truth was rancorous as a lie. 

Alas ! how many are the foes of man, 
That lie in wait and his destruction plan. 
From the first moment that he draws his breath, 
Around him are the instruments of death. 
Most fearfully and wonderfully made. 
The quick frame trembles of itself afraid, 
Lest in each nerve the penalty be felt 



HEALER AND SAVIOUR. .^ 

4/ 

Of broken law inevitably dealt, 

And the betrayed and suffering organs rise, 

And force unwilling groans to reach the skies. 

A million shames and guilt of suicide 

Attach to such, Avho thus throw open wide 

The doors of penal pain and earthly hells ; 

But towards these also heavenly pity swells. 

While much is due to ignorance and sin. 

And lusts that burn incessantly within, 

Disease has other causes. No defense 

Can make quite safe the child of innocence. 

No life is new, original and fresh. 

Some latent weakness of the new-born flesh. 

Some old ancestral tendency or taint 

May make the whole head sick, the whole heart faint— 

The germ in former generations sown. 

Growing in darkness, suddenly made known 

In torments manifold. Lo, thence arise 

Dumbness, convulsions, palsies, lunacies-^ 

Perverted function of the brain and nerves. 

When will for government no longer serves, 

Leaving the temple hallowed and sweet 

Open to the abominable feet 

Of unclean spirits. Not when doors are barred, 



48 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

And all the ministers of Health keep guard, 
Can these find entrance, nor can longer stay 
After that power resumes her broken sway. 
But Health though armed is vulnerable still, 
Not wholly proof against the darts of ill — 
No panoply of most impenetrable steel 
Can save the flying unprotected heel. 
When stalks the Pestilence, naught can disperse 
The dark, unknown, imponderable curse — 
Th' unavoidable and needful air 
Purveys the poison, and men drink despair. 
Dread Epidemics fill the land with woe, 
Then o'er the sea to distant regions go. 
These pass away, and may not come again, 
While chronic plagues, like Leprosy, remain — 
Type and superlative of all that 's vile. 
Whose neighborhood suffices to defile, 
Compelled to warn approaching feet when seen 
To stand afar and cry, " Unclean ! unclean !'* 

The scaly horror when it first begins 
Is often but a spot on fairest skins : 
By slow degrees, the multiplying scab 
Spreads o'er the whole, and worse succeeds to bad, 



HEALER AND SAVIOUR. 49 

Till it becomes to the disgusted sight 
A leprous surface hideously white. 
The hair falls off ; nails loosen ; fingers, toes, 
Shrivel and rot ; teeth disappear ; eyes, nose, 
Tongue, palate, are consumed ; beneath the cope 
No remedy, the sepulchre of hope. 
This grave of beauty, dreadful to record. 
This death in life, so loathsome and abhorred, 
Has its own ghastly counterpart within — 
The moral death and leprosy of Sin. 

O double Saviour from a double death ! 
Vicarious Sufferer ! — as Isaiah saith, 
" Himself took our infirmities and bore v^^iv 

Our sicknesses " — what could His love do more ? 
He saved the sinner and He healed the sick — 
The blind, the deaf, the dumb, the lunatic, — 
At His own cost : the leper white as snow 
Released from his hereditary woe, 
By virtue which went out of Him — with pain 
And vital loss offsetting vital gain — 
Payment of penalty, relieving Grace 
Obliged to suffer in the sufferer's place. 
4 



go THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

" My Father works/' said Jesus, " and I work." J^^^^ 
He paid no heed to Pharisaic quirk, 
Still doing good upon the Sabbath day, 
In His unparalleled and Godlike way. 
Never did hours bear up on loaded wings 
So vast a weight and multitude of things : 
Enough of mercy in this day appears 
For celebration through a thousand years. 



Matt. viii. 2-4 ; Mark i. 35-45 ; Luke iv. 42-44: v. 12-16. 

Rising up early, long before 't was light, 



Mark 
i- 35 



Lengthening the day by cutting short the night, 

He went to pray out in a lonely place. 

Not for Himself but for the human race. 

And Simon followed with the other three, 36 

And having found Him, said : "All seek for Thee !" 37 

And when they would have stayed Him, He said, ''No! 

Into the neighboring cities let us go 

That I may preach the Kingdom of God there : 

To them I also must the Good News bear. 

For this end came I forth, for this am sent. 

To save from coming wrath and punishment." 



Luke 
V. 12 



As He was entering a certain town, 
A leper came to Him, and kneeling down ^^l^ 



HEALER AND SAVIOUR. 

Besought Him, saying, - If Thou wilt, Thou, Lord, ^ark 

Canst make me clean." He moved with pity toward ^x 

The wretched outcast, shrunk not back, averse, 

From the contagious foulness of the curse, 

But stretching forth His hand, him touched, and said, 

*' I will. Be clean !" Immediately he shed 4^ 

The leprous slough, and over his whole frame 

The skin all soft and beautiful became. 

Jesus charged sternly : " Tell no man, but go, 43 " 

And do what Moses has commanded, show 44 

Thee to the priest, that he may search for trace 

And make the offerings ordered in such case, 

For proof to all the cleansing is complete!" 

He, disobedient and indiscreet, 4s 

Blazed it abroad, with the effect to draw 

Great crowds about His steps as He foresaw. 

Hindering His heavenly work to that degree, 

That He could no more enter openly 

The cities, but in desert places preached, 

Where nevertheless great multitudes Him reached. 

Matt ix. 2-8 Mark ii. 1-12 ; Luke v. 17-26. 

Returning to Capernaum once more ^ark 

ii. I 

The glad waves sent dear welcome to the shore. 



52 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

When it was noised He was again at home — ^^^ 
And a great number had together come, ^ 

Who thronged the entrance of the house and street, 
While He addressed them loving words and sweet — 
Behold a paralytic borne of four 3 

Was brought to Him. Because of the blocked door 
Not able to come nigh Him, they the roof + 

Uncovered where He was ; and with this proof 
Of their strong trust in the Great Healer, they 
Let down the bed whereon the sick man lay. 
And when this evidence of faith He saw 5 

In bearer and in borne, in tones of awe 
As if God spoke, discerning deeper need 
Than even that for which they came to plead — 
Desire of pardon, hope and fear combined. 
With penitence and humbleness of mind — 
He to the sick man said : " Be of good cheer. 
Thy sins forgiven are !" And sitting near ^ 

Were Scribes, who said within themselves, "This man 7 
Blasphemes. Why speaks He in this wise ? Who can 
Forgive men's sins but God alone?" And He, ^ 

Their thoughts discerning, said : " Wherefore do ye 
Think evil in your hearts ? For of the two, 
Whether is it more easy in your view 9 



HEALER AND SAVIOUR. c? 

To say, ' Thy sins forgiven are !' or, ' Rise, ^^^^ 

And walk !' But that the Son of Man likewise '^ 

Has power on earth sins to forgive, thus know — 

I say, 'Arise, take up thy bed and go " 

Unto thy house !' '* The palsied man straightway ^^ 

Arose, and took up that whereon he lay, 

And went to his own house. O'erwhelmed with awe, 

All said, '' The like of this we never saw. 

'T is meet we glorify the God of Heaven, 

Who unto men such wondrous power has given." 



54 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
GRATITUDE. 

Psalm cm. 1-5. 

O bless the Lord, my soul ! 

Let all within me bless ! 
Join, all my powers, in psalms of praise 

And hymns of thankfulness ! 

O bless the Lord, my soul ! 

Let memory awake. 
And think of all His benefits 

And grateful mention make ! 

Who all thy sins forgives, 

All thy diseases heals ; 
Who saved thy life from threatened death. 

And for thee pity feels. 

Who gives thee pleasant food. 

And makes an end of pain. 
So, like the eagle, is renewed 

Thy faded youth again. 

Then bless the Lord, my soul ! 

Let all within me bless ! 
Join, all my powers, in psalms of praise 

And hymns of thankfulness ! 



THE NEW DISPENSATION— THE SABBATH. 



55 



VII. 

THE NEW DISPENSATION— THE SABBATH. 

Matt. ix. 9-13 ; Mark ii, 13-17 ; Luke v. 27-32. 

HE, wanting space, again the seaside sought, j^^^^^ 
And the assembled multitude there taught. 
Passing along the shore He saw a man ^4 

Of priestly lineage, a publican, 

Levi, son of Alpheus, better known ^"^^ 

As Matthew — scorned and hated of his own 
Because of his vocation — sitting there 
At the receipt of custom, toll-booth, where 
Were Roman toll and tax and tribute paid. 
To choose a publican, an outcast Jew, 
Would be a scandal well the Saviour knew — 
But He, Who could his inner fitness see. 
Paused not a moment, saying, " Follow Me ! " 
And he arose, obedient to the call, ^^ 

And forthwith followed Him, forsaking all. 

After this Levi made Him a great feast ^9 

In his own house. The feasters were increased 



Luke 



56 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

By publicans and sinners, who sat down 

With Him and His disciples — viewed with frown 

And murmured disapproval, open sneer, 30 

And wrathful whisper hissed into the ear. 

By watching Scribes and Pharisees, who came 

Only to make malignant search for blame. 

^* Why eats your Master with these persons vile," 

They say to them, "and thus Himself defile? " 

He, overhearing, said : " They that are whole 31 

Need no Divine Physician of the soul. 

Only the sick. I did not come to call 32 

Th' already pure, but sinners one and all. 

But go and learn what meaning therein lies : 

* I will have mercy and not sacrifice.' " 

Matt. ix. 14-17 : Mark ii. 18-22 : Luke v. 33-39. 

Certain of John's disciples asked : " For what 33 
Do we fast oft and Thy disciples not?" 
And Jesus said : " Of grief is fasting born. 34 

Can children of the bridal chamber mourn 
While yet the Bridegroom's with them? Fast will 
they, 35 

When He is taken finally away. 
No man is so unwise as to attach 36 



THE NEW DISPENSATION— THE SABBATH. 



57 



To an old garment an unshrunken patch, ^""^ 

Formed of new cloth unfulled, which cannot mend, 

But only take from it and farther rend. 

Neither do men put new wine^ into skins 37 

Old, yeasty, soaked, and sour, for then begins 

At once in the sweet must, intestine strife, 

A festering death with mimicry of life. 

*That by the term "new wine," must is meant, can hardly admit of a doubt. In 
Luther's translation here as elsewhere, "new wine" is invariably rendered must. The 
meaning of jmist as defined by all the Dictionaries is "new wine, wine pressed from 
the grape but notfermejited.'''' — Imperial Dictionary. The two terms (/. <?., new wine 
and must), are used interchangeably in all the books, and this of itself is conclusive, 
that wine to be wine need not be fermented. Here, unless by new wine, the unfer- 
mented article be understood, the illustration is emptied of all force and propriety. 
Why does "no man put new wine into old bottles " ? Plainly because if new or unfer- 
mented wine were put into ^/^ bottles (bottles previously used), they would be sure to 
contain some of the yeasty remains of their former contents, and so induce fermenta- 
tion, causing a rending of the bottles, the yeast present having its moral counterpart 
in the Judaic leaven which later was the means of schism in the Christian Church, for 
an account of which see Paul's Epistle to the Galatians throughout. New wine is 
unieavened 'wiTiG. Now if unleavened bread is bread, by parity of reason, unleavened 
wine is wine. The grape juice and the dough have undergone precisely the same 
change, for vinous fermentation Sind Canary fermentation are identical ; but while in 
the one case the alcohol generated is retained, in the other it is driven ofE entirely by 
the heat of the oven. It is true, that when wine is spoken of, fermented wine is usual- 
ly meant, just as in the case of bread, but there is no zisus loquendi, quite the contrary, 
which forbids us calling the unleavened varieties, wine and bread. 

Webster's Dictionary (last edition, not the earlier ones), makes wine a general term, 
like cider, defining it as " tke expressed juice of grapes ^ usually the fermented juice." 
Those Dictionaries which confine the word wine to the fermented article alone, sup- 
ply manifestly an imperfect definition, and are moreover inconsistent with themselves, 
for turning to the word Must, these same Dictionaries (the Imperial, for example), 
give as its meaning, " new wine, wine pressed from the grape but not fermented," 
which is an undeniable example of the use of the word in another sense, the sense 
contended for. So if we consult the Latin and Greek Lexicons, they all agree in de- 
fining the Latin, Mustum, and its Greek equivalent, y/leu/cof, as"new W2»^." For 
a fuller discussion, see pp. 208-234 of this Work, Part First. 



58 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Raging and furious gases therein pent ^^^ 

Boil, hiss, and heave, and struggle to get vent. 

Till the distending bottles burst at last. 

And the spoiled liquor on the ground is cast. 

But when new wine is put in bottles new, 38 

Then sealed, no fermentation can ensue — 

The vital poise maintained, by nothing swerved. 

Contents and bottle are alike preserved. 

In John's disciples, as in Pharisee, 
The roots had struck of a fond fallacy, 
That bodily affliction was an end — 
And so they found it hard to comprehend. 
That painful fastings, which did not express 
Some sacred grief, were vain and profitless. 
When men had come to hug the form, mistake 
The shadow for the substance, and to make 
The number of the fastings the chief test 
Of character — accounting them the best 
Who fasted oftenest, and every sign 
Had grown more meaningless and less divine, — 
'T was proof the time for terminating type 
And cumbrous ritual was already ripe. 
'* Lo ! I," Jehovah says, ''make all things new ! " 



THE NEW DISPENSATION— THE SABBATH. 

And Christ is here to make the promise true. 
The old, like an old garment quite outworn 
And past all patching, ragged, rent, and, torn, 
Is cast aside, each fragment and each shred. 
So that the new may be all new instead — 
A seamless vesture, glorious as the sun. 
Immortal looms employed to make it one. 

Foolish incongruous mixings are not meet 
Of new with old, the fresh with the effete, 
The sweet with sour, the living with the dead. 
The Heavenly Bridegroom is already wed 
To a new bride. When death has made divorce. 
Must He be tied forever to a corse ? 
A little leaven leavens without end, 
Corrupts the pure, and mighty is to rend. 
Like specks of rottenness too small to see. 
The rot and leaven of the Pharisee, 
And later taint of a dead Judaism, 
The baneful cause of rupture and of schism. 

Christ does not supplement, but supersede — 
Both Jew and Gentile are from Moses freed. 
He does not mend or piece, but weaves a whole, 
And in a clean sweet body pours a soul. 



59 



Luke 

V. — 



6o THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

No man, the slave of custom, it is true, ];^^^ 

Used to the old, straightway desires the new, 
Saying, the old is better. But while none 
Of all the prophets greater is than John, 
He is still greater, better taught, more free, 
Who knows the perfect law of liberty. 

John v. 1-47. 

A Jewish feast was nigh, and Jesus went -^^^f 

Up to Jerusalem, love motive lent. 
Hard by the sheep-gate was a Pool, far famed - 

For heahng properties, in Hebrew named 
Bethesda, with five porches running round, 
Where a great multitude of sick were found — 3 

Blind, halt, and withered — waiting for the stir, 
Known sometimes in the water to occur — 
( For it was said, an angel went down then 4 

Into the Pool and troubled it, and when 
This happened, whosoever first stepped in 
The prize of healing certain was to win). 

A man there lay, who thirty-eight long years s 

Had helpless been, and wet his couch with tears 
From hope deferred, grown desperate of relief. 
Jesus, who knew the term of his long grief, ^ 



THE NEW DISPENSATION— THE SABBATH. 6 1 

Him pitying asked, " Wouldst thou be whole ? " He 
said : J;^" 

"Always another steps of me ahead.'* 
And forthwith Jesus, without further talk, ^ 

Commands him : " Rise ! take up thy bed and walk ! " 
He rose, took up his bed, and walked straightway. ^ 
And it so happened 'twas the Sabbath day. 
The Jewish elders therefore to him said : ^<» 

" It is not lawful to convey thy bed." 
" I do what He who healed me bade me do. " 

What's lawful He should know as well as you." 
" Who is the man who bade thee to do so ? " " 

He could not tell them, for he did not know — ^3 

Jesus, the cure performed, not making stay 
Lost in the crowd had passed from sight away. 
Him later Jesus in the Temple finds, '♦ 

And what behooves him solemnly reminds : 
" Behold thou art made whole, sin thou no more. 
Lest something worse befall thee than before ! " 

The man departed, and the elders told, ^s 

'Twas Jesus healed him. Fiercer than of old ^^ 

Blazed their fanatical and fatal hate. 
To murder Him they plot and lie in wait, 
For having healed upon the Sabbath day, 



62 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

And told the cured he should his bed convey, ^°^ 

Against the frivolous and foolish rules, 

Prescripts and prohibitions* of the schools, 

Rabbinical traditions vain and void, 

Which the true purpose of the law destroyed. 

Not such the holy Sabbath, Heaven decreed. 
To meet the physical and moral need 
Of all the sons of toil — a double rest. 
Rest to the aching back and weary breast ; 

*An idea of the senseless and burdensome nature of some of these may be got from 
the following summary taken chiefly from Geikie's Life of Christ. In regard to the 
tying of knots — To tie or untie a camel-driver's or sailor's knot was unlawful, but a 
knot which could be untied w^ith one hand w£.s lawful. A shoe or sandal or woman's 
cap, or a wine or oil skin bag might be tied,, A pitcher at a spring might be tied to the 
body-sash, but not with a cord. It was forbidden to carry food of greater bulk than a 
dried fig; of honey more than would suffice to anoint a wound ; of paper more than 
could be put into a phylactery ; of ink beyond what would be needed to form two let- 
ters. It was a desecration of the day to kindle or extinguish a fire ; or in sickness to 
give an emetic, or set a broken bone, or put back a dislocated joint. No healing was 
permitted except life was in danger. If one was buried under ruins he might be dug 
out if alive, but not if dead. To wear one kind of sandal was carrying a burden, but 
not another. One might not alone carry a loaf of bread on the public streets, but two 
together might. A journey was limited to 2,000 cubits. 

The Sabbath began with sunset on Friday, and ended with sunset on Saturday. If 
it was cloudy the hens going to roost was to be the signal. The beginning and end- 
ing were announced in Jerusalem by a trumpet from the Temple ; and so in different 
towns. From the decline of the sun on Friday to its setting was Sabbath-eve, during 
which all food must be prepared, all vessels washed, and all lights kindled. No man 
must go out of his house with a needle or pen lest he should forget to lay them aside 
before the Sabbath opens. Pockets must be searched to see that nothing is left in 
them unlawful to carry. The Sabbath was believed to have prevailed in all its strict- 
ness from eternity throughout the universe. Even in hell the lost had rest from their 
torments during its sacred hours. 



THE NEW DISPENSATION— THE SABBATH. 63 

Sacred to God for worship and for praise — {°^ 

Sacred to man for health and length of days — 

For, though a part of the Creator's plan, 

Man was not made for it, but it for man — 

Was made for man, when man himself was made, 

And the foundations of the world were laid. 

Since hushed Creation heard the Maker speak 

The amen of the cycle of the week, 

The mandate springs eternal in the breast, 

And draws its sanctions from man's need of rest. 

Things that pertain to nature, age, or clime, 

Things of it, and not it, may change with time. 

The day is as the need — it were not good 

To keep the hunger and abolish food. 

Meanwhile its Christian freedom is complete, 

And all its chaste austerities are sweet. 

But, ah ! the food that nourishes can make 
The deadly venom of the vengeful snake. 
Bigots distil from mercy, love, and truth. 
The murderous malice of the poisoned tooth. 
Turn all to hate, wax hourly worse and worse, 
More blind, more deaf, more hardened, more perverse. 
Strange, that these men, who sat in Moses' seat, 
Did not fall prostrate at His awful feet. 



54 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Unable to deny the glorious fact J°^J! 

That God was present both in word and act. 

More strange, a miracle none could dispute 

Should form their only plea to persecute — 

That for a work, whose heavenly source was plain, 

They should Him cite, and criminally arraign 

Before the Sanhedrim, to answer make, 

Why He their Sabbath quirk had dared to break. 

He threw down challenge in bold words and fit : ^^ 
'* My Father works, and does not intermit 
His powerful working anywhere in space. 
Either in nature, providence, or grace. 
And I too work in love, and can attest 
Perpetual labor is perpetual rest." 

This made the elders more determined still ; ^^ 

Who found therein new pretext Him to kill. 
For that, not only He the Sabbath broke. 
But in addition blasphemy had spoke — 
Calling God ' Father,' arrogating high 
Equality with God. He made reply : ^9 

" The Son can nothing do but what He sees 
The Father do, He duplicates but these. 
The Father loves the Son, and to Him shows ^ 



THE NEW DISPENSATION— THE SABBATH. 65 

All things He does and purposes and knows; J°^ 

And greater things than healing of the sick 
Will show through Him. As He the dead'' makes 
quick, 21 

The Son too quickens whom He will and when. 

" Nor acts the Father as the Judge of men. ^^ 

Omniscient like Himself, He, judging none. 
All judgment has committed to the Son, 
That all may honor to the same extent 23 

The gracious Sender and the gracious Sent. 
Wherefore 't is my prerogative and right 
To sins forgive, I judge by inward light. 
Who hears My quickening word, and Him believes ^^ 
Who sent Me, everlasting life receives— 
Life from above, life spiritual, in room 
Of death and condemnation and just doom. 
Because this life's unseen, demand ye proof ? 
The hour is coming and not far aloof, 25 

When the entombed and carried on a bier 
Shall start to life as they My voice shall hear. 
As in the Father life springs unbegun, -^ 

Life in Himself is given to the Son. 

* Deut. xxxii. 39. 



56 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

He's made man's Judge, admire Heaven's gracious 
plan ! V? 27 

Because while God He is a Son of man. 



" Marvel ye not at this, the hour is near, ^^ 

When all the buried dead His voice shall hear, 
4 And shall amazed come forth, and all mankind ^9 

Have their just portions severally assigned. 
I can do nothing of Myself alone, ^° 

Having no will distinctively My own. 
Since as I hear I judge, My judgment must, 
Clothed with conjoint divinity, be just. 

'' If I bear witness of Myself, then you 31 

Might justly say, My witness is not true, 
As void of proof. But there's Another One, 32 

Who bears Me beaming witness like the sun. 
Ye sent to John, and he true witness bore — 33 

But not from men receive I witness more — 34 

Not for Myself do I this reference make, 
But that you may be saved, and for your sake — 
A burning lamp far shining in the night, 3s 

Ye for a time were happy in his light. 
But proofs of My Messiahship are given 36 

Greater than John's, and reaching up to heaven — 



39 



4o 



THE NEW DISPENSATION— THE SABBATH. 57 

'' My works, demanding power omnipotent, ^^^^n 
Bear witness that My Father has Me sent. 
Though evidenced in Me, ye stand agape, 37 

And neither hear His voice nor see His shape. 
Because your vain traditions fill the floor, 38 

Against the word of God ye shut the door- 
Discredit what the Scriptures testify 
Of Me, and think they witness to a He. 
Ye search them, for ye think ye have therein 
Eternal Hfe, without forsaking sin. 
But full beHef in them refuse to give, 
And will not come to Me that ye may live. 

'' I seek not human glory, I desire 

None of those honors to which you aspire 

For I know you, that ye crave power and pelf, 
And have not love of God but love of self. 
I come, commissioned in My Father's name. 
And ye with bitter scorn reject My claim. 
If comes another, artful to deceive. 
All unaccredited, him ye'U receive. 
How can one possibly believe, who clings 44 

To worldly honors and minds earthly things- 
Willing God's favor for their sake to lose? 



42 



43 



68 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



John 
V. 45 



Think not Til to the Father you accuse — 

Moses, in whom ye put your trust, ev'n he 

Will you accuse, because he wrote of Me. ^6 

But seeing Moses' writings ye reject 47 

What better for My words can I expect? " 

Thus spoke the future Judge of quick and dead, 
And all the guilty Court was dumb with dread. 
How awful Goodness is ! the Truth how sweet ! 
Let unborn lips the precious words repeat : 

" The Father to the Son all power has given — 
His throne established in the height of heaven ; 
Him raised to sit at His right hand alway, 
Above all rule, authority, and sway, 
And given Him a name all names '^ above, 
And put all things beneath His feet of love. 
His dwelling is with men to execute 
True judgment and show mercy : to uproot 
Satan's dark empire and the reign of death. 
The Lord of Life, He quickens with His breath 
The dead in trespasses^ and sins, and lifts 
To sit in heavenly places crowned with gifts. 

aPhil. ii. 9. ^Eph. ii. 1-5; Col. ii. 13. 



THE NEW DISPENSATION— THE SABBATH. 



69 



Matt. xn. 1-8 ; Mark ii. 23-28 ; Luke vi. 1-5. 

As He returned to Galilee, He went ^f" 

Through cornfields on the Sabbath day. Intent 
Upon the holy work of doing good, 
He paid no heed to His own want of food, 
But His disciples hungry from long fast, 
Plucked a few ears and rubbed them as they passed, 
And ate. And watching Pharisees hard by = 

Said unto Him : ''See thy disciples ! Why 
Break they the Sabbath, and Thou not forbid ? " 
He said : " Have 3^e not read what David did 
When he was hungry, how he scrupled not 
With those who were the sharers of his lot. 
To go into the House of God, and eat ^ 

The sacred show-bread, which it was not meet 
Nor lawful for himself or any one, 
To touch or taste, except the priests alone ? 
Or in the law, have ye not read again, s 

The priests by work do not the day profane ? 
By labor and by rest, by both or each. 
The day is holy kept and without breach. 
O'er all the motive dominates and sweeps. 
The spirit soars, the letter only creeps ; 
The Temple needs are not so great, at most. 



^o 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

As man's, the Temple of the Holy Ghost. J^J?^^- 

Of little import is the outward act, 

Compared with character and moral fact. 

Sabbath and sacrifice in this agree. 

They're far less dear to God than charity. 

Lord of the Sabbath and the Source of it, * 

The Son of Man is judge of what is fit." 

Matt. xii. 9-14; Mark hi. 1-6; Luke vi. 6-11. 

Departing thence, he entered on His way ^^^l 

A synagogue another Sabbath day. 
And taught in words they all could understand. 
A man was present with a withered hand. 
And Scribes and Pharisees made feigned appeal : ^ 
'' Since work is work and it is work to heal, 
Is healing lawful wrought on Sabbath days ? " 
Quite sure by past miraculous displays. 
If asked to heal. His love would not refuse, 
They watched to see that they might Him accuse. 
Knowing their thoughts He gave to him command, ^ 
Who had the palsied arm and withered hand : 
'' Rise up and stand forth in the midst ! " And he 
Rose up and stood. And Jesus said : '' Let me 9 

Ask you. Is't lawful to do good or ill 
On Sabbath days? to save life or to kill? " 



THE NEW DISPENSATION— THE SABBATH. 71 

They held their peace, not venturing reply. ^,1^ 

With an unusual sternness in His eye, 

He said : "What man, who having but one sheep, ^^^^i 

Fallen into a dangerous pit and deep, 

Would not lay hold of it and lift it out ? 

Since man is better than a sheep, no doubt, ^^ 

It is most lawful to do good always. 

Both on the Sabbath and all other days." 

Then looking round with anger mixed with griet ^^^^ 

On them so hard of heart. He mandate brief 

Spoke to the man : ''Stretch forth thy hand ! " The 

will 
Flashed power along the nerves, that felt the thrill 
Of the returning life, and the disabled hand 
Regained its ancient cunning and command. 
They, filled with madness, plotted with hot breath ^ 
With the Herodians His speedy death. 

Matt. xii. 15-21 ; Mark hi. 7-ia. 

Withdrawn with His disciples to the sea, 7 

Vast numbers came to Him from Galilee, 
And from Judea and Jerusalem, * 

Perea, Idumea, some of them 
From Tyre and Sidon and the adjoining coast, 
Hearing the things He did, a mighty host. 



72 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Though coming crowds around him surged and 
pressed ^^^^ 



lii. 8 



Leaving Him little or no time for rest, 

Of mortal weariness He gave no sign, 

Nor paused nor fainted in His work divine. 

Howe'er they jostled, pushed on every side, 

His holy lips were never heard to chide — 

In the fulfilment sweet of what of old ^^^^^ 

Was by Isaiah of the Christ foretold : 

' Behold My Servant whom I chose ! My Sent ! ^^ 

My Well-beloved in whom I am content. 

Upon Him I My Spirit will bestow, 

And judgment to the Gentiles He shall show. 

He shall not strive nor cry, no fearful ear ^9 

His voice haranguing in the streets shall hear. 

Urging sedition and fomenting feuds, 

Exciting to revolt fierce multitudes. 

He without noise shall worldly kingdoms shake, 

The bruised reed He will in nowise break, ^^ 

And smoking flax He will not quench, but He, 

Gentle as kingly, will all patience be, 

Till smoke burst forth in clear victorious flame, 

And distant Gentiles learn to trust His name.' ^^ 



THE NEW DISPENSATION— THE SABBATH. 



73 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 

All time, O Lord, is holy time ! 

To Thee we wake, to Thee we sleep, 
'Mid busiest hours the heavens we climb. 

And a perpetual Sabbath keep. 

In Thee we live and move and are, 
From Thy full fountains we are fed ; 

Thou makest sun and moon and star 
Meek ministers to yield us bread. 

Thy laws relation have to need — 
Water essential is to thirst — 

Repeal of water may succeed. 

But want should be abolished first. 

While life is toil — most sweet, most kind, 
This boon of leisure and of rest ; 

This holy quietude of mind, 

This weekly Sabbath of the breast. 



74 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

We Sundays keep, and feel no yoke, 
Day of the Lord, the day of days ! 

When earth's ten thousand altars smoke 
With the sweet incense of Thy praise. 

But then, we know, no law sets free 
From that which is above all price — 

The sacred claims of charity — 
For Mercy's more than sacrifice. 




THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 75 



A 



VIII. 

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 

Matt. v. i — vii. 29 ; Mark hi. 13-19 ; Luke vi. 12-49. 

ND He went out into a Mountain, where 



Luke 
vi. 12 



He Spent the night in solitary prayer, 
And called to Him, just as the sun arose, ^3 

Of His disciples whom He would ; and chose, 
With those already gathered to His feet. 
As many as would make the Twelve complete — 
Ordained them and appointed them to be f^i^^^ 

Always with Him, to have authority 
As His envoys to publish and proclaim 
Pardon and peace to sinners in His name, 
And heal the sick and demons exorcise, ^5 

Under the seal of the attesting skies. 

Descending lower down with them, He stood ^"^^ 
On a raised plain mid a vast multitude. 
Composed of His disciples — and all them 
Who from Judea, and Jerusalem, 



Luke 
vi. i8 



Matt 

V. I 



^5 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

And from the shores of Tyre and Sidon came 

To hear Him and be healed — His blessed name, 

Now on all lips, because there was no case 

Too desperate for His reUeving grace ; 

The virtue that went out of Him was such ^9 

That men were healed with one believing touch. 

All hushed, He sat, and lifting up His eyes 
On His disciples, taught them in this wise : 

Happy the poor in spirit, who 

their deep demerit own, 
In them My Kingdom I set up 

with them I share My throne. 
Happy are they, who mourn for sin 

with smitings on the breast. 
The Comforter shall comfort them 

in ways He knoweth best. 
Happy the meek, who patient bear, 

unconscious of their worth, 
They shall inherit seats of power, 
and dominate the earth. 
Happy who hunger and who thirst 

for righteousness complete. 
Their longings shall fulfilments have 
and satisfactions sweet. 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 77 

Happy the merciful, who know Matt, 

to pity and forgive, 
They mercy shall obtain at last, 

and evermore shall live. 
Happy the pure in heart, whose feet s 

with holiness are shod, 
They shall run up the shining- way 
and see the face of God. 
Happy the friends of peace, who heal 9 

the wounds by discord given, 
The God of Heaven shall hold them dear 
and call them sons of heaven. 
Happy are they, who suffer for 10 

adherence to the right, 
They shall be kings and priests to God 
in realms of heavenly light. 
Happy are ye when men revile " 

and falsely you accuse, 
Be very glad for so of old 

did they the prophets use. 
Happy are ye, when for My sake, 

men persecute and hate. 
Exult ! for your reward in heaven 

is made thereby more great. 



Matt. 
V. 13 



78 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

" Ye are the salt, whose saving power and worth 
Arrest corruption and preserve the earth ; 
But if the salt its saltness lose, bereft 
Of soul and sapience, the remnant left 
Is foolish dirt, fit only to be then 
Cast out and trodden under foot of men. 
Watch, therefore, lest ye fall and lose the grace, 
And ye yourselves be cast away as base ; 
Once lost, no power the savor can restore, 
The salt remains unsalted evermore. 
Towards them without do ye in wisdom ^ walk, 
Seasoned with salt your conduct be and talk. 
He who a sinner by his pureness^ wms 
Shall save a soul and hide unnumbered sins. 
Devoted be, a sacrifice entire 
Salted with salt and purifying fire.° 

" Ye are the light of this dark world to show ^+ 

The narrow path to erring man below. 
Since ye are now, who once in darkness lay. 
Light in the Lord and children of the day,"^ 
Walk in the light, gainsay ers thus confute 
By holy arguments of answering fruit ! 

^Col. iv. 5, 6. ''James v. 20. <= Mark ix. 49. ^^Eph. v. 8. 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 



79 



Matt. 

V. — 



A city that is set upon a hill 

Cannot be hid, let men do what they will. 

Nor do men light a lamp, and put the light ^^ 

Under a bushel, but, in open sight 

And on a stand, that so it may illume 

Each dark and distant corner of the room. 

Let your pure light so shine, that all may see, ^^ 

In your good works and acts of piety. 

Sweet demonstrations of your sonship given, 

And glorify your Father Who's in heaven ! 

'' Think not I'm come to vacate or defeat, ^^ 

I'm come not to destroy, but to complete, 
Expound and magnify God's perfect law, 
And give fulfilment of what prophets saw 
Of Gospel promise and predicted grace. 
Amen, I say to you that in no case. 
Till earth shall fail, and heaven no more abide, 
Shall aught pass from the law, till satisfied 
Fulfilled and honored in each sacred jot. 
And awful tittle, penstroke, point and dot. 
In laws ordained for Israel of old 
Were things foreshadowed and events foretold, 
That have fulfilments when the time is ripe — 



i8 



go THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Type in the coming of the antitype, ^^^• 

The shadow in the substance. Drops the shell 

And lo, the kernel it concealed so well. 

These, by abolishing fulfilments, end : 

But none may blot the writing God has penned, 

His permanent sure word : the least command 

Is the eternal rescript of His hand. 

Because th' authority which clothes the least ^9 

Of God's commandments cannot be increased, 

Who breaks and teaches men to break them, he. 

In the New Church and Kingdom of the Free, 

Shall be called least ; but who shall do and teach 

Them strictly, he shall highest honors reach. 

For verily I say to you, unless ^° 

Yours shall exceed the boasted righteousness 

Of Scribes and Pharisees, for you the gate 

Of My pure Kingdom shall be all too strait. 

'^ Ye've heard that it was said by them who made ^^ 
Additions to the law of old a trade — 
The ancient glossarists who maimed and clipped 
The meaning of the original prescript — 
' Thou shalt not kill, and, who shall kill shall be 
In danger of the judgment, else is he 
Not guilty.' But I say, ' Thou shalt not hate !' 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. gl 



Matt. 

V. — 



For murders in the heart originate : 
The guilt is not confined to outward act — 
A murderous temper murder is in fact. 
Feelings are judged, by Him who cannot err — 
Who hates his brother is a murderer. 
Anger that is not moral is forbid ; 
Where malice mingles there is murder hid. 
The armed assassin, ambushed in the heart. 
Shoots unseen arrows at each vital part — 
Stabs with mad words, projecting curses fell 
With tongue of fire that 's set on fire of hell. 
But for the cowardice of heart and hand, 
Raca 3.nd /oo/^' were all for which they stand. 
Lawless is passion. Adder in the path 
Is not so venomous as waiting wrath. 
Like fabled basilisk, its poisoned breath 
Is hot and deadly, and its glance is death. 

"As love, which neither works nor wishes ill, =3 

Alone the law can in its breadth fulfil, 
If to the altar thou thy gift dost bring. 
And there rememberest there is any thing 
Thy brother has against thee, leave behind ^-^ 

* These terms, especially the latter, are expressive of great contempt and bitterness, 
and may be regarded as tantamount to imprecating damnation on another. 
6 



g2 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

The gift unoffered, and with friendly mind ^,^!!: 

Go first be reconciled to him, then lift 

An unshamed head and so present thy gift. 

" Agree with him whom thou hast wronged straight- 
way ! ^^ 
Compose thy differences without delay ! 
Matter of quarrel while thou canst remove, 
Lest he, from whom thou keepest back thy love, 
Be like a creditor who a debtor meets 
And drags him to the judge through all the streets ; 
Delivered to the officer at last. 
He into prison without hope is cast. 
Debtor to love thou shalt be prisoner made ""^ 
Till the last farthing of the debt is paid. 
Be warned against the horrors of that state, 
The black Gehenna of eternal hate. 

" Ye 've heard it was of old commanded, ' Thou ^7 
Shalt not commit adultery.' But now ^^ 

1 say, not ' lewd and lavish act of sin ' 
Alone, but unchaste look alike lets in 
Th' adulterous defilement, so that he 
Who lusts is guilty of adultery. 
Thou shalt be master of thyself, severe *9 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. g^ 

Toward every loose desire, nor hold so dear ^att. 

V. — 

Th' unmeasured worth of thy right hand or eye, 

As a triumphant saintly chastity. 

Filled with intense aversions and disgusts 

Tread under foot contaminating lusts. 

Let no thought enter gross or unrefined 

The unpolluted temple of the mind. 

Make with thine eyes a covenant, control 

These avenues and inlets to the soul. 

Of the strange woman"^ and her arts beware, 

'T is for thy life, be caught not in her snare. 

After her beauty lust not, do not sell 

Thy birthright, bargaining it for hell. 

Where crawls the worm that ceases not to gnaw 

And quenchless flame of violated law. 

If thou wouldst not consort with pains and stings, 

And all abominable and detested things, 

Excise the cancer with unsparing knife, 30 

For no adulterer can enter life. 

"And it was said, ' Whoso shall put away sx 

His wife, let him in witnessed form convey 
A writing of divorce.' The cause with him 
Need be mere weariness or wish or whim. 

"Prov. vii. 5. 



84 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

This, for the hardness of your heart once given. 
Was sufferance rather than the will of Heaven. 
From the beginning it was otherwise, 
I now pronounce the statute of the Skies : 
Who shall his wife divorce from board and bed, 
Except for lewdness, and another wed ; 
And he who marries her, not rightly free 
Both these and she commit adultery. 
What God has joined let none asunder put, 
Trampling eternal sanctions under foot. 



Matt, 
xix. 8 



Mark 
X. 9 



Matt. 
V. 33 



" Again, ye 've heard in olden time 't was said 
' Thou shalt not falsely swear, but pay, instead. 
All vows expressl}^ made unto the Lord, 
For this obligatory makes thy word :— 
Oaths that contain not, nor imply God's name, 
Are mock oaths, without force and without blame, 
Of which ten thousand broken in a day 
Stop short of perjury, and nothing weigh.' 
The frowns of Heaven on such vain swearing fall. 
Therefore I say to you. Swear not at all ! 34 

Neither by heaven, for it is God's high seat ; 
Nor by the earth, the footstool of His feet ; 35 

Nor by Jerusalem, of Avhich He is King ; 



V. 36 



37 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT o^ 

Nor by your head ; nor yet by anything. Matt 

Too much protesting^^ is not wise nor well. 

An oath adds nothing to the truth ye tell. 

So let your speech be simplest, Yes and No, 

For from the Evil One additions flow. 

The law means this : Thou shalt not falsify ! 

To bear false witness is to tell a lie. 

This is the whole, however men invent 

Endless deceits concerning what is meant— 

Darken the simple and perplex the plain, 

By some unholy juggle of the brain ; 

Gioze over insincerities of speech, 

That crafty men the better may o'erreach. 

" Ye ve heard that it was said, 'An eye for eye, 38 
A tooth for tooth,' for this is equity. 
Equate the Avrong by giving blow for blow— 
Wlio showed no mercy, him no mercy show.' 
But I enjoin : Resist not evil ! learn. 
If one shall smite thee on one cheek, to turn 
To him the other also ! If he sue. 
And take thy cloak, surrender thy coat too ! 

* 'Tis not the many oaths that make the truth, 
But the plain simple vow that is vowed true. 

— Shakespeare. 



39 



40 



86 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

And if moreover he shall thee constrain ^^"; 

To go with him one mile, go with him twain : 
Whatever provocation thee assail, 
Let not thy patience nor thy meekness fail I 
Beware how thou give place to cruel Pride, 
Companion of Revenge, the homicide — 
The Sin of Self that will no insult brook, 
Paying in blood the outrage of a look. 

" Ye 've heard 't was said, ' Thy neighbor love, and 
hate 43 

Thine enemy.' But 1 reiterate 44 

The old commandment : Love your enemies, 
In word and deed ! Bless them in gentle wise 
Who curse ! Do good to them that hate ! And pray 
For them who persecute ! that so ye may ^s 

Be children of your Father Who 's in heaven, 
By whom the dear and high example 's given — * 
For He on good and bad, on one and all, 
Causes His sun to shine, His rain to fall. 
For if ye love them only who love you, ^6 

As publicans do this, what thanks are due ? 
If ye salute your brethren only, what 47 

Do ye the heathen naturally do not ? 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 



87 



As is your Heavenly Father, so be ye, ^att. 

Perfect in love and in benignity ! 

" Let not your righteousness be a deceit, ^- ^ 

A hollow show, and worthless counterfeit. 
Done to be seen of men ! for in God's sight, 
Right done from love of right alone is right- 
Base motives render base. Fix your regard 
On His approval, as your high reward ! 
So when thou doest alms, do not proclaim ^ 

By sound of trumpet everywhere the same, 
As do the hypocrites— vain-glorious cheats 
Who in the synagogues and in the streets 
Publish their charities, that they may gain 
Glory of men ; 't is all they shall obtain. 
When pity prompts, and alms-deeds thee invite, 3 
Let not thy left hand know what does the right; 
The secret alms thou blushest to make known a 

Thy Father sees, and openly will own. 

" And when thou prayest, let the office be 5 

A sacred matter 'twixt thy God and thee ! 
Be not as are the hypocrites, who pray 
In synagogues and streets for self-display— 
Whose worship is a mock and an offense— 



Matt, 
vi. 6 



88 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

They have their sought for, worthless recompense. 

Enter thy closet, having shut thy door, 

Thy Father, Who in secret is, implore ! 

And He, Who- sees in secret, will regard 

With favor, and thee openly reward. 

But when ye pray, let your weighed words be few ! ^ 

Use not vain babblings as the heathen do. 

Who think their gods for their much speaking hear. 

So with loud repetitions stun the ear. 

Be ye not like to them ! Before ye speak ^ 

Your Father knows your need, and what ye seek. 

After this manner briefly pour your heart, 9 

Whether ye pray together or apart : 

'■ Our Father, Who dost make in heaven Thy home. 

Thrice hallowed be Thy name ! Thy Kingdom come ! 

Thy will be done — Thy perfect law of love ^° 

Fulfilled on earth as in the realms above ! 

Give us this day the bread by which we live ! " 

Forgive our debts as we men's debts forgive ! ^^ 

Into temptation lead us not, but ever ^3 

In danger's hour from evil us deliver ! 

For Thine the Kingdom is, and Power, and Praise, ''^ 

And the Amen, through everlasting days.' 

Forgive, and ye shall be (not else) forgiven, — ^s 

Such is the unalterable law of heaven. 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 



89 



Matt, 
vi. 16 



" And when ye fast, let not your fasting be 
An acted piece of sheer hypocrisy — 
Vain ostentation, pretence, and parade, 
A studied make-believe and masquerade, 
With rueful visage and disfigured face, 
Hiding gross worldliness, and motives base. 
This fast to men, to win men's poor regard, 
Has verily from men its sole reward. 
As fast from self is more than fast from meat, '^^ 

As sordid looks make not the soul more sweet, 
Anoint thy head, and wash thy face, that so 
No one the secret of thy fast shalt know, ^^ 

Except thy Father, who will recompense 
Thy most sincere and secret penitence ! 

'' Lay not up treasures here with futile zeal, ^9 

Where moth corrupts, and thieves break through and 

steal ; 
But soar aloft on swift and eager wings, =° 

To grasp the substance of eternal things ! 
Provide ye bags that wax not old, secure ^h^^s 

A treasure in the heavens that shall endure ! 
There neither moth consumes nor rust corrodes. 
No thieves invade those high and safe abodes ; 



go 



Matt. 
vi. — 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Set your affections then on things above, 
For where your treasure is will be your love ! 



" Lamp of the body is the seeing eye, ""^ 

Lighted by all the torches of the sky— 
If single, clear, and healthy be the sight, 
Then is the happy body full of light ; 
But if diseased or double be the sense, 23 

Dark in thyself, the dark will be intense — 
Like to the utter darkness of the blind, 
A double vision and a double mind. 
For none can serve two masters with true heart, ^^ 
Howe'er duplicity may play its part ; 
From its allegiance Hate is sure to swerve — 
Ye can in no wise God and Mammon serve. 

" Dismiss solicitude and sordid care ^5 

About what ye shall eat or drink or wear ! 
Life 's more than food, the body more than dress, 
Who gives the greater will bestow the less. 
Behold the birds of heaven, they do not sow ^^ 

Nor reap, nor plenty into barns bestow. 
And yet your Heavenly Father feeds them — say, 
Are ye not of more value much than they ? 
Are not five sparrows for two farthings given ? 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. ni 

And yet not one forgotten is of Heaven, ^.^*^ 

Nor falls unnoticed. Ye are much more dear 

Than many sparrows, therefore do not fear. 

So watchful, tender, and minute God's care. 

He notes and numbers of your head each hair. 

And which of you by dint of anxious thought ^i 

Can ever add to his fixed stature aught ? 

Why are ye troubled about raiment ? See ^s 

The lilies of the field, how carelessly 

They grow, they toil not, spin not, are at ease — 

Yet Solomon was ne'er arrayed like one of these. ^9 

Wherefore if God so clothe the growing grass 30 

Which is to-day, and shall to-morrow pass 

Into the oven, will he not clothe and do, 

O ye of little faith, as much for you ? 

So be not anxious about clothes and food, 31 

Which untaught Gentiles seek as their chief good, 32 

But seek ye first the glory and success 33 

Of God's own Kingdom and His righteousness — 

Labor to build on its eternal base 

His government of truth and love and grace. 

And all these temporal things shall added be 

To the possessions of Eternity. 



92 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

" Be not concerned about to-morrow's fate, ^^"• 

' VI. 34 

For what shall happen be content to wait ; 
Meet not the traveling grief that makes delay, 
Sufficient is the evil for the day." 



" Sit not in judgment on your fellow man ; 
God judges righteously, no other can. 
Judge not, lest ye condemn yourselves therein. 
And forfeit needed mercy for your sin ! 
Measure for measure shall to you be given 
By unrespecting and impartial Heaven. 
And why art thou so keen and swift to spy 
And blame the mote that dims thy brother's eye, 
But blindly tolerant and dense as night 
To the huge beam that darkens thy own sight ? 
Or how wilt thou assume to purge his sense, 
When thine own eyes are full of rank offence ? 
Bigot and hypocrite, thy beam remOve, 
Then pluck thy brother's mote with hand of love. 

" Give not things holy unto dogs — beware 
Lest currish natures turn on you and tear ! 
Nor cast your pearls 'fore senseless swine to root 
And trample them uncaring under foot ! 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 

\y5 



" Nothing's so free as hospitable Heaven — Matt. 
Ask, and all needful grace shall you be given ! 
Seek, and the gate of Mercy ye shall find ! 
Knock, and a lofty welcome waits behind ! 
Who ask receive, who seek they find, who knock ^ 
To them will God the heaven of heavens unlock. 

'' For what man of you all, who, if his son 9 

Should ask him for a loaf, will give a stone ? 
Or for a fish, a serpent will bestow ? 10 

If ye then being evil, always know " 

How to supply your children's hungry needs, 
How much more He, whose love all love exceeds. 
Your Heavenly Father, shall good gifts impart 
To those who ask in singleness of heart ! 

" Do as ye would that men should do to you,— ^^ 
This is the law, and this the prophets too. 

" Enter ye in at the strait gate and low ! 13 

For wide the gate, and broad the road to woe- 
Many there be, who tread that downward path. 
Which to destruction leads and waiting wrath. 
For narrow is the gate, not letting in 14 

The added bulk of unrepented sin ; 



g^ THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

And hard the way and difficult to climb ^j^*^ 

That leads to life and holiness sublime ; 
And few there be, who with deep searching eyes 
Find out that hidden path and mount the skies. 

" Be on your guard against false prophets, who "s 
Cruel as cunning, heedless souls undo — 
Wolves in sheep's clothing — their pretentions try. 
Ye by their fruits shall know their claim a lie. '^ 

Do grapes on thorns, or figs on thistles grow ? 
The fruit decides, by it the tree ye know ; ^7 

As is the fruit, so the producing tree, 
Or good or evil, as the case may be ; 
If good the tree, so also is the fruit, ^^ 

If evil, evil, each to each must suit. 
The tree that brings not forth good fruit, the same ^9 
Shall be hewn down and cast into the flame. ^° 

" Not he who mere lip-homage pays to Me, ^^ 

Into My Kingdom shall admitted be ; 
But he alone, whose life is in accord ; 
Who does God's will, as well as calls Me, Lord. 
Many will say to Me in that dread day, ^^ 

When all disguises shall be swept away, 
' Lord ! Lord ! do not reject our pious claim ! 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 95 



Matt, 
vii. — ■ 



Have we not prophesied in Thy great name, 

And cast out demons, many wonders done ?' 

Then I will all relationship disown, ^3 

Saying, I know you not, depart from Me, 

O, all ye workers of iniquity ! 

" Therefore, who comes to Me for grace and light, ^^ 
These sayings hears, and does them with his might, 
Him will I liken to the prudent man. 
Who built a house, and, digging deep, began 
By laying its foundations on a rock, 
Solid and mighty to resist all shock. 
The rain descended, and the floods arose, ''s 

And the wind blew, and with repeated blows 
Smote it, but when the storm was overpast. 
Rock-based, unshaken, lo, the house stood fast. 
But he who hears My words, and hugs his guilt, ^^ 
Is like unto the foolish man, who built 
His house upon the sand. The winter rain ^7 

Descending, flooded all the shifting plain ; 
Fierce blew the wind, loud roared the streams around, 
And the house fell quick crashing to the ground." 

When Jesus, in the audience of those ""^ 

Assembled, brought His sayings to a close, 



q6 the light of the world. 

All were astonished, for He spake with awe, 

Not as the Scribes, but as Himself the law — 

Proclaiming from that Sinaitic hill, 

With all authority, Jehovah's will ; 

That New Commandment, latest from above, 

The deuteronomy summed up in LoVE. 



Matt, 
vii. 29 



CHARACTER OF A HAPPY MAN. 

Psalm i. 

Happy the man not led astray, 
Whose feet fly far the fatal snare ; 

Who stands not in the sinner's way, 
Who sits not in the scorner's chair. 

But in the statutes of the Lord 
Finds evermore a new delight ; 

Feeds on the sweetness of His word, 
In meditation day and night. 

Like to a tree, that's planted near 
Unfailing streams that feed the root, 

On bending boughs 'mong leaves ne'er sere, 
He shows to Heaven immortal fruit. 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 

Whate'er he does shall grow and thrive, 
His joyful soul shall leap and laugh ; 

Not so th' ungodly ; winds shall drive 
Them far away like empty chaff. 

They shall not in the judgment stand, 
Nor shall the grace they spurned acquit : 

But owned of God, at His right hand, 
The righteous shall exalted sit. 



97 




98 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



IX. 

CENTURION— WIDOW OF NAIN— DEATH OF JOHN. 

Matt. viii. i, 5-13: Luke vii. i-io. 

DESCENDING from the Mount, -the eager throng 
Follow His footsteps, as He goes along ^j^^^ 

Towards Capernaum, where elders wait 3 

His mighty coming at the city's gate — 
Sent forth by a Centurion (one who 
Had built a synagogue, though not a Jew, ^ 

And held most worthy), bearing his request s 

That He would heal his servant, sore distrest 
With a dire palsy, ready now to die. ^ 

Jesus went with them ; and, as He drew nigh ^ 

The house's door, the Roman Captain sent 
A second embassy His coming to prevent, 
Saying, " Lord, trouble not thyself to come, 
It were too great an honor to My home, 7 

That thou shouldst enter it, but if thou say 
The word, my servant shall be healed straightway. 
For I have power committed to my hand, ^ 



CENTURION— WIDOW OF NAIN. go 

And say to soldiers under my command, ];^^2 

Go ! and they go : Come ! and they come : This do ! 
And swift compHances at once ensue. 
Thy wilHng vassals are disease and death, 
Yielding obedience to Thy sovereign breath." 
AVhen Jesus heard He marvelled. Turning round 9 
He to the people said : " I have not found ^° 

So great faith, no, not in all Israel." 
In that same hour the servant was made well, 

Luke vii. 11-17. 

On the next day, divinely prescient, " 

He, journeying swiftly, to a city went 
Called Nain.* Th' attendant multitude scarce kept 
Pace with His rapid march. As on they swept. 
Mile after weary mile without a pause. 
They wondered greatly what might be the cause 
Of His great haste, until as they drew near 
The city's gate, they saw borne on a bier 
A dead man, only son of a poor widow, who 
Made loud lament as mourning mothers do. 
Much people of the city present were — 
And when the Lord her saw He pitied her, ^3 

* Nain was 25 miles from Capernaum. 



i6 



lOO THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

And said : " Weep not ! " — then came and touched the 
bier • ^"^^ 

While they that bare stood still in awe and fear, 

And said : " Young man, I say to thee, Arise I " 

And, lo ! he that was dead, before all eyes '5 

Sat up and spake. Him, rescued from the grave, 

Back to his mother's joyful arms He gave. 

A sudden dread and a mysterious awe 

Came down on all who this great wonder saw ; 

And glorifying God, they said, '' 'T is plain, 

A mighty Prophet has appeared again : 

After long waiting, as in ages past. 

His people God has visited at last." 

Matt. xiv. 3-12 ; Mark vi. 21-29. 

Bright and particular, the Morning Star, 
With matchless splendor, prophesies afar 
Th' immediate' coming of the Orb of Day, 
Then with the increasing light it fades away. 
So Christ's incomparable Forerunner, John, 
Bore brilliant witness, till the Risen Sun, 
From the vast firmament in healing streams. 
Poured on the world His golden wealth of beams, 
To bless the nations, and mankind restore, 
And banish ancient night forever more. 



DEATH OF JOHN. 



lOI 



xiv. 3 



John's lofty mission finished, a brief while 
Allowed to bask in his great Master's smile- 
Rejoicing in the light which made his dim, 
And ceasing not to testify of Him— 
It on one dark and fatal day befell Matt 

That Herod Antipas, fit tool of hell. 
Him seized and bound and into prison thrust, 
To please the haughty partner of his lust, 
Herodias, for whom he had defied 

All law, and outraged decency beside 

Causing wide scandal, discontent, and strife 

By wedding her, his brother Philip's wife. 

And so, a Jew, to soften public blame. 

He sought from John the sanction of his name; 

Who, fearless of the ang-er of the kins' 

Said to his face : '' 'T is not a lawful thing 

For thee to have her." He enraged would then 

Have killed him, but durst not, for that all men 

Held John a prophet. To his foxy eyes, 

Later, it seemed not politic nor wise 

To put to death one of renown so pure. 

Not so his bloody minded paramour. 

She— murderous thoughts revolving night and day, 

Her thirst for vengeance brooking no delay— 



XIX. 



I02 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Ceased not to plot with devilish design, ^^^^_ 

Till on his birth-night, when inflamed with wine, 

Keeping high wassail with his guests, it chanced, 

Salome, daughter of Herodias, danced 

Before them all, and it pleased Herod so. 

That he made drunken promise to bestow 

On her whate'er she asked, though it should be 

Half of his realm. Urged by her mother, she 

Said : " Give me here upon a dish the head 

Of John the Baptist, other gift instead." 

The king was sorry, caught thus in the snare 
Laid for his feet, but yet he did not dare 
Retract his foolish oath,* before them sworn 
Who sat at table, dreading secret scorn. 
And so he ordered it to be fulfilled, 
Ev'n to the letter, as the damsel willed. 
With severing stroke, there in his prison cell, 
On his great neck the axe uplifted fell ; 
The bleeding head, just from the body torn, 
Was to the girl upon a charger borne. 
Who it received, and to her mother brought 
The gory prize she had so cheaply bought. 

* " It is a great sin to swear unto a sin 
But greater sin to keep a sinful oath." 

— Shakespeare. 



DEATH OF JOHN. jq^ 

When the dread tidings his disciples heard, ¥^f"- 

They took the headless trunk and it interred ; 
Then went, and Jesus told the horrid tale — 
Hearing the news ten thousand cheeks turned pale. 

Matt. xi. 2-19 ; Luke vii. 18-35. 

While in the fortress of Machasrus pent, ■^^- ^ 

Prison and palace, John to Jesus sent 
(Told of His works, self-witnessing, divine) 
Two of his own disciples with design, 
That from Christ's lips they might the truth receive. 
And mid adverse appearances believe. 
Instructed so, they asked Him : " Art Thou He, 3 
The Christ, the One that Cometh, or do we 
Look for another ?" In that very hour 
Jesus cured many by His word of power 
Of manifold diseases. Thereupon 
He said to them : " Go ye, report to John, 4 

What ye have seen and heard, there answer find. 
Yourselves are witnesses, how that the blind 5 

Are made to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb 
To speak, the lame to walk, — how lepers come 
And are made clean, how e'en the dead are reached. 
And how the Gospel to the poor is preached. 



I04 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Happy is he and sure of recompense ^f'J- 

Who finds in Me nor scandal nor offense ! " 

Jesus began to speak, when they had gone, 7 

Unto the multitude concerning John : 
" What went ye in the wilderness to find ? 
Was it a frail reed rocking in the wind ? 
But ye went out expecting what to see ? ^ 

One in soft dress apparelled gorgeously ? 
Those who live delicately are in king's courts, 
And are too dainty for such rude resorts. 
Was it to see a prophet ye went out ? 9 

A prophet and much more beyond a doubt. 
For this is he of whom 't is written, ' Lo ^° 

I send My Messenger, and he shall go 
Before Thy face, and shall prepare the way, 
What time Thy coming shall no more delay !' 
Among them that are born of women, none ^^ 

Of all the prophets greater is than John ; 
But not the honor — which to him was given, 
As the great Messenger and Mouth of Heaven ; 
The Voice and Witness of the speaking Sky 
Proclaiming that the Reign of God was nigh — 
Equals the greatness of the meanest place 



DEATH OF JOHN. 105 



Matt. 



In the established Monarchy of Grace. 
Not height of function, nor related blood, 
But holy choice of the eternal good 
Gives highest title in that Kingdom blest, 
Set up forever in the willing breast. 

" John, who at first stood outside and before 
The mighty threshold of the palace door, 
Was first to enter, and has ever since 
Been true and loyal to the Heavenly Prince. 
His faithful head, once pillowed on the sod. 
Rests on the bosom and the heart of God — 
Above all dignity, all height above. 
Sharing the privilege of the least that love."^ 

" From John till now God's Kingdom comes in 
power " 

And might of numbers, growing evei'y hour ; 
With holy violence and conquering stress 
They storm its gates, and struggle to possess. 
For all the prophets prophesied as one, ^3 

Till high fulfilments were in John begun — 
Himself th' Elijah destined to appear— '4 

He that hath ears of hearing let him hear : ^5 

* For the grounds of the opinion, that John was z'n and noi outside the Kingdom of 
Heaven, see pp. m, 112 of the Evangel, First Part. 



Io6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

His powerful summons all the people heard, ^^//^^ 

And publicans repented at his word, 

Heeded the warning to the nation given, 

Being baptized, and justifying Heaven. 

Not so the Pharisees and lawyers, they, 30 

Rejecting counsel, dared to disobey ; 

With towering arrogance God's grace despised. 

Refusing to repent and be baptized. 

" With nothing pleased, impossible to suit, 31 

Peevish, perverse, and given to dispute. 
Malicious, quarrelsome, and prone to strike, 
To what then is this generation like ? 
'T is like to boys who in the market, play 32 

Weddings and funerals, and, calling, say 
To surly playmates difficult and sour : 
' We've used all means to please you in our power ; 
We piped to you, and yet ye would not dance ; 
We mourned to you, and ye, with looks askance 
In churlish ugliness and sullen spite. 
Refused in acted grief your breasts to smite.' 
For John the Baptist came, not using food 33 

Lawful and innocent, for reasons good — 
A Nazarite from birth — and ye proclaim. 



DEATH OF JOHN. 107 



Luke 



vu. 



He has a devil, jealous of his fame. 

The Son of Man ( since not His Kingdom lies 34 

In meats and drinks ) in general, gracious wise, 

Eating and drinking came, unbound by rule, 

Severe rigidities of sect or school, 

And ye find fault, and slanderously pretend 

He is a glutton and a drunkard, friend 

Of publicans and sinners. Ye deride, ss 

But Wisdom of her sons is justified." 



The Prophet of the Voice ! 

Made, by Jehovah's choice, 
His Messenger to go before His face ! 

He in the desert bred, 

On hermit's diet fed, 
A coat of camel's hair his loins embrace. 
Hark ! hark ! I hear his warning cry : 
" Repent ! Reform your lives ! the Reign of Heaven 
is nigh," 

Full loud the thunder rolls 
O'er conscience-smitten souls, 



I08 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

And all the land is filled with solemn fears : 
To him vast numbers press 
Out in the wilderness, 

And he baptizes them, baptized before in tears ; 

But Pharisees and Sadducees drives hence, 

Devoid of these wet proofs of honest penitence. 

None of the prophets old. 

So lofty or so bold ! 
No form of danger shakes his dauntless breast : 

In loneliness sublime, 

He dares confront the time. 
And speak the truth, and give the world no rest : 
No kingly threat can cowardize his breath. 
He with majestic step goes forth 1 o meet his death. 

Truth may seem stern and proud 

To the misjudging crowd ; 
But Christ's forerunner lovins: is and mild : 

I hear the tender moan 

Of Pity in each tone — 
A father grieving o'er a wayward child : 
Note too, how meanly he himself doth rate, 
^' Myself am a low nothing, Christ alone is great." 



THE PENITENT WOMAN. 



109 



X. 

THE PENITENT WOMAN— THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 

Luke vii. 36-50. 

A CERTAIN Pharisee, with coarse design, ^^^^^ 

Invited Him one day with him to dine 
Ingenious to contrive deHberate slight, 
By failure of each customary rite, 
Of hospitable welcome. While at meat, 
Reclining with unwashed and dusty feet, 
A harlot of the city glided in — - 37 

Crushed with the shame and burden of her sin, 
Full of self-loathing for her life abhorred, 
Presuming on the pity of the Lord, 
The Friend of Sinners, whose dear lips had spoken 
Strange words that morn by which her heart was 

broken : 
'' Come weary souls with heavy guilt opprest 
Come unto Me and I will give you rest !" 

And might she come ? And was not hers a case, 
Beyond the reach and remedy of grace ? — 



no THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

A sinner branded with opprobrious names, Jtj^^ 

O'erwhelmed with infamies, contempts and shames. 
Could Heaven so stoop ? and was it truly so, 
That there was mercy for one sunk so low ? 

Grateful, and sure His condescension such 
He Avould not shrink from her believing touch, 
She with her brought, to show a dumb regard. 
An alabaster cruse of precious nard ; 
And when she saw Him, to all others blind, 38 

She softly stole His blessed feet behind, 
And wet them with her tears profusely shed, 
And wiped them with the tresses of her head, 
And kissed them, poured thereon the rich perfume, 
The costly fragrance filling all the room. 

Meanwhile, much scandalized, the frowning host, 39 
Making His sep'rateness his special boast. 
With cold, disdainful eyes the scene beheld. 
Saw one, a thing for spurning, unrepelled, 
Nay welcomed ; and, indignant at the sight, 
That filled all heaven with pleasure and delight. 
He spake within himself, though not unheard 
The secret thought that his vain bosom stirred : 
'' This Man were He a Prophet, would have seen 



THE PENITENT WOMAN. 



Ill 



This woman was a sinner, most unclean." Luke 

vu. — 

And Jesus fastened on him eyes that read 40 

All that was passing in his soul, and said : 

'' Simon, I have somewhat to say to thee." 

Awed by that look of calm divinity, 

He spake with due respect : '' Master, say on ! 

I hsten "—his seK-confidence half gone. 

'' A creditor two debtors had. One owed 41 

Five hundred pence, for him a heavy load ; 

The other fifty. And when, bankrupt, they 42 

Had not wherewith the smallest part to pay. 

He generously forgave them both. Which then. 

Tell me, will love him most of these two men ?" 

Simon rephed : ^' The chance is more than even, 43 
He will love most to whom was most forgiven." 

" Thou hast judged rightly," Jesus said, '' and here 
Is confirmation and example clear. 
See'st thou this woman, Simon } I, a guest, 44 

Entered into thy house at thy request. 
Thou gavest Me no water for My feet ; 
But she has washed them with the crystal sweet 
Of weeping eyes ; and wiped and made them fair 
With the abundant tresses of her hair. 



112 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Thou gavest Me no kiss ; but she has since ^^^^^ 

I came, her love and sorrow to evince, 

Ceased not to kiss My feet ; nor oil'dst My head ; 46 

But she has on My feet rich spikenard shed. 

Wherefore her sins, though many, are forgiven 47 

By the free favor of approving Heaven. 

For she loves much, proportioned to the grace 

That cancels the demerit of her case. 

But thou lov'st little, if thou lov'st at all. 

With reason, if the needed grace be small : 

Or if thou 'rt pure, and owest naught to Heaven, 

Why love at all, with naught to be forgiven?" 

Jesus then turned, and, her addressing, said : 48 

" Thy sins forgiven are, be comforted !" 
When they, that sat at meat with Him, began 49 

(Blind to the proof that He was God in Man) 
To question His authority and right 
To sins forgive, He said, from the same height 
Of sole prerogative beyond increase : 
** Woman, thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace !" 50 

See, O my soul, see pictured in this case 
The mind of God and methods of His grace ! 
The more, if this be Mary Magdalene, 



MARY MAGDALENE? H^ 

The same* who figured in a former scene, ^f'^f. 

When the dear Lord, not measuring her blame, 

Cast out seven devils from her tortured frame — 

The dread possession having for its cause 

Guilty excess and violated laws. 

Restored to sanity and self-control. 

She melted toward the Power that made her whole. 

As now a backward look remembrance cast 

O'er all the guilty miserable past, 

And her roused conscience, with just terrors tost, 

Saw all too plainly that her soul was lost. 

Thoughts of God's goodness to repentance led, ^^'^^ 

And opened all the well-springs of her head. 

No longer blind, by a new light within. 

She saw th' exceeding sinfulness of sin ; v"- ^3 

And shuddering saw its ill desert as well, 

Dreadful and dark and bottomless as hell ; 

Knew that each guilty deed had damning force 

To fill eternity with keen remorse. 

If but the pure in heart God's face shall see. 

What hope was there for one so vile as she ? 

Sincerely penitent, she, nevertheless. 
Owed it to Heaven her vileness to confess ; 

* The tradition that identifies the two is an ancient one, and has been accepted by 
the painters, but rests on doubtful authority. 



114 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



And felt she could shed voluntary tears, 
And make perpetual moan through endless years, 
Because that she had smned and loved not Love. 
She wept not that she might God's pity move, 
Not to gain favor, but because 'twas meet 
With streaming e3^es to wash the Saviour's feet. 
Thus occupied w^ith sorrow and self-blame, 
'T was unexpected when the pardon came. 
If at the gallows' foot there comes reprieve. 
What joy ! but who the rapture can conceive, 
When Lips Divine speak peace, and loving breath 
Remits the sentence of eternal death ? 

Much was forgiven, and she loved much. 
And from that hour was her devotion such, 
She lived to Him alone — her whole delight viu^^rs 

Adoring ministries from morn till night : 
Him giving of her substance, to supply 
Shelter and food He was too poor to buy. 
Strange sight ! the Bread of Life oft wanting bread ; 
Lord of all Worlds, nowhere to lay His head ; 
Heir of Eternity, like beggar, He 
From woman's hands accepting charity ; 
Willing to take what it pleased her to give, 



MARY MAGDALENE? II5 

As if dependent on her help to live. 

Amazing paradox ! the finite set 

Above the Infinite to bring- God in debt : 

Like ocean, grateful to each drop of rain, 

As though 't were not his own paid back again. \ 

Her Lord and Saviour saw in her exprest 
Soft love and pity, such as filled His breast ; 
And owned the tears, that for the wretched ran, 
As shed for Him, identified with man. 
All that she did to soothe another's grief. 
He counted ministries for His relief ; 
The cup of water to the thirsty given. 
For His dear sake, a favor done to Heaven. 
Ten thousand little acts she valued not. 
By Him remembered though by her forgot, 
Proofs of a love, that did not what it would 
But only that poor something which it could, 
Esteeming it unworthy of regard, 
Laid yet foundations for undreamt reward. 
For God is love, and they who in love dwell, 
God dwells in them and they in Him as well. 
Who shall the " Well-done " of the Master win, 
Into His joy at last shall enter in. 



Il6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

DAVID'S PENITENCE. 

Psalm li. 

Have mercy, my offended God ! 

According to Thy goodness spare ! 
Let not the judgment of Thy rod 

Sink me still deeper in despair ! 

O hear, and my transgressions blot ! 

Save me from my enormous guilt ! 
Wash from my soul each leprous spot 

For Thou canst cleanse me if Thou wilt. 

My sins are mountainous, they climb 
The heights of air and reach the skies ; 

The ghastly horror of my crime 
Is night and day before my eyes. 

'Gainst Thee this odious deed was done ; 

I struck my Maker in the face ; — 
No wonder blushed th' astonished sun, 

And earth saw shudd'ring the disgrace. 

. Were not Thy mercies as the sand, 
I do not know, that I would dare 



DAVID'S PENITENCE. 

Thus lift to Thee these bloody hands 
In agonizing act of prayer. 

Though well I know, there cries to Thee 
The crimson of th' accusinsf sod, 

Hide not Thy face, deliver me 

From my bloodguiltiness, O God ! 

Burnt offerings and sacrifice 

Didst Thou desire, I would impart — 
One only Thou wilt not despise, 

A broken and a contrite heart. 

Create in me a heart that's pure ! 

Renew, transform, and make me o'er I 
Not otherwise can I be sure 

I will not stumble as before. 

By Thy free Spirit me uphold. 
For I am weak and sick and sad ! 

Forgive, and love me as of old, 

And give me back the peace I had ! 

Then to transgressors I will teach. 

How there are none so far from Thee, 

But Thy salvation can them reach, 
For, lo, it did extend to me ! 



11/ 



Il8 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Luke viii. 1-3. 

Day after day, from early morn till night, ^^^\ 

Jesus pursued His labors infinite. 
To every city, every village went, 
Preaching and healing — mind and body spent, 
In minist'ring to crowds that round Him pressed ; 
Haggard and worn for want of food and rest. 
And certain women, wonderfully restored =^ 

To health and reason, did not grudge their Lord 
Their service nor their substance nor their life — 
Mary called Magdalene, Joanna, wife 3 

Of Chuza, Herod's steward, aid supplied, 
Susanna too, and many more beside. 

Matt. xii. 24-50 ; Mark hi. 19-35; Luke xi. 14-36 ; viii. 19-21. 

The Scribes and Pharisees, with new alarm, 
The people saw won over by the charm 
Of His most gracious words and godlike acts ; 
Unable to deny th' astounding facts — 
Demons ejected by His simple word. 
No cabalistic formula was heard, * 

* Jewish Cabalists believed that the pronunciation of certain magical words engraved 
on the seal of Solomon would work marvels. " The mightiest of all agencies was the 
unutterable name of Jehovah " ; but in addition to the secret name of God or some of 
the angels, they attributed a magical efficacy to certain mysterious combinations of let- 
ters and numbers, and particular texts of Scripture. 



Mark 
iii. 22 



THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 1 19 

A mere, ' Be healed ! ' sufficing for the cure, f^^'^^ 

Easy, direct, immediate, and sure. 

Though visibly, in all, the Godlike towers. 

High o'er malefic agencies and powers. 

They dare His works bespatter and belie. 

And spit their blasphemies against the Sky — 

Saying, He is Himself possessed, as well. 

And casts out demons by the Prince of Hell ; ^3 

Yea, half persuade, with this invention vain, ^^ 

His friends and family that He 's insane ; 

Who seek to apprehend Him on this ground. 

He said (His foul maligners to confound), 

" No state divided 'gainst itself can stand. ""* 

The end of Satan's kingdom were at hand, 

If he against himself should head revolt, ^^ 

And, leagued with foes, conduct the strange assault. 

If I by Satan demons put to rout ^i^"^ 

By whom then do your children cast them out ? 

Be these your judges. But, if I cast out ^^ 

Demons with God's own finger, then no doubt 

God's Kingdom has come nigh to you. None can ^9 

Plunder a strong man's house, unless some man 

Of greater strength is able him to bind : 

Then can he spoil the spoiler to his mind. 



I20 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Because I stronger am than Satan is, ^*'^ 

I wrest from him the prey he holds as his. 

Who is not with Me is to Me adverse — 3° 

Not simply neutral is, but something worse. 

Who gathers not with Me, through envy base, 

Scatters abroad and frustrates heavenly grace. 

'' Wherefore I say to you. All kinds of sin 3^ 

And blasphemy may full forgiveness win, 
But blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. 
The grace that saves men to the uttermost. 
And pardons blasphemy against the Son, 3« 

Has for this form of sin forgiveness none — 
Not in this world nor in the world to come — 
Closed is the Court, the Advocate is dumb. 

'' The fruit decides infallibly the tree— 33 

No case admits of higher certainty. 
For men do never gather grapes of thorns, 34 

Nor figs of thistles. Therefore, he who scorns 
Such final proof, and for some cause denies, 
Dupes his own soul and binds it o'er to lies. 
He treads the crumbling verge of an abyss, 
Who dares discredit evidence like this. 



THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. j2I 

•' M)^ works of mercy, wrought by power divine, 
Ye to Satanic agency assign. ^?^^ 

Beware, lest sinning thus against the light, 
Ye lose the moral facult}^ of sight ; 
Commit like Satan the eternal sin, 
And be like him infernalized within ; 
With 3^our own hands the knell of seeing toll, 
And so in outer darkness plunge the soul. 

'' To all who ask, the Holy Spirit 's given. 
But, having long and vainly with you striven, 
Blunting the keenness of His heavenly darts 
On the unyielding hardness of your hearts, 
Found you opposing evermore the right. 
Resisting, grieving, doing Him despite. 
Till diabolic grown in love and hate — 
What can He do but leave you to your fate ? 
Lost irredeemably who thus blaspheme, 
Trampling the Godhead of the One Supreme. 

'' [' False and fair foliaged asi the manchineel,'* 
Whose every part dire poison doth conceal, 
Found in the fruit, and present in the wood]. 
Entirely evil, how can ye speak good : 3S 

Your tongue is slander, and your lips are guile ; 

* Coleridge. 



122 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Your breath ' outvenoms all the worms of Nile ' ; ^-^'i: 
True to th' abundance of the heart, always, 36 

The blabbing mouth the character betrays ; 
Hence for each idle word that men let fall 37 

They shall account to the Great Judge of all. 

"An evil generation seeks a sign, 38 

And to its will would sway the Will Divine ; 
Dissatisfied with proofs already given, 
Would dictate new ones to the God of Heaven. 
One final sign My mission shall attest, 39 

Supreme, unparalleled, unlike the rest — 
As Jonah, three days in the belly slept * -^^ 

* It is conceivable that Jonah, while in the fish's belly, was in a state of trance. 
Cases are on record, where persons were supposed to be dead, and have been perfect- 
ly conscious of what was going on around them during the preparations for the fun- 
eral. One in point is the well known case of Rev. William Tennent, who died at 
Freehold, N. J., March 8, 1777. When he had nearly completed his theological course, 
he became seriously ill, fell into a catalepsy or trance, and remained for several days 
in a condition of apparent death. His physician perceiving a slight tremor under his 
left arm, refused to consent to his burial ; and although his friends were satisfied he 
was dead, his funeral was postponed for three days, and subsequently for several 
hours, efforts being made meanwhile for his resuscitation, which finally occurred just as 
the physician was giving up in despair. His recovery was slow and painful. He 
stated, that at the moment of his apparent decease, he found himself surrounded by an 
unutterable glory, and saw a great multitude apparently in the height of bliss, sing- 
ing most melodiously ; and that when he was about to join the great and happy multi- 
tude, some one came to him, looked him full in the face and said : ' ' You must go back. ' ' 
At the shock this intelligence gave him, he opened his eyes, and finding himself in the 
world fainted. A memoir of him, giving a verj'- full account of his trance was pre- 
pared and published by Judge Elias Boudinot. — Nezv Ainerica7i Cyclopedia. 

Hibernation and Estivation., called by the Germans, IVintersckla/ (winter sleep) 



THE SIGN OF JONAH. 1 23 

Of the great fish, miraculously kept — ^^'^ 

In dreamy trance, the spirit still awake — 

Then to the Lord did supplication make 

Out of the heart of hell, what time below 

The bottoms of the mountains he did go. 

And o'er him all God's waves and billows passed, 

And then alive was on the dry land cast — 

So shall the Son of Man rest in the gloom. 

Three days, of earth's deep heart and teeming womb. 

" The Ninevites shall in the Judgment rise -^^ 

And you condemn ; for they did not despise 
The call of Jonah to repent, while here 's 
A greater Jonah speaking to deaf ears. 
The Queen of Sheba shall with wondering mouth •^- 
Witness against you, for from the far south 

and Sommersc/iia/ {summer sleep), are terms used to denote the torpor or sleep which 
certain animals fall into and remain during the season of cold or heat. During hiber- 
nation (which is by far the most common) the respiration being almost entirely sus- 
pended, the maintenance of vitality depends chiefly on the heart. Animals in this 
state maybe placed in Carbonic Acid, or underwater for several hours without injury, 
though they -would die in a very few tninutes in their nortnal state. 

" Long continued suspension of consciousness in man is rare in temperate climates, 
but is more frequent in India, where some religious ascetics are stated on unimpeach- 
able authority to possess the pow^er of throwing themselves into a state closely resem- 
bling hibernation for an indefinite period." — Encyclopedia Britanica. 

While the facts concerning Jonah's preservation are no doubt to be considered 
miraculous, it is nevertheless true, that the account given, marvellous as it is, is hardly 
more so than some seemingly well authenticated modern stories told about the Fakirs. 



124 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



She came to hear the words of Solomon, Jff^i: 

While here 's the wisdom of a Greater One. 

'' A sick man' for a time shall seem to mend, ^^ 

And deem the foul possession at an end. 
But should there be, as many times it haps, 
From causes blameable, a sad relapse. 
The unclean spirit, multiplied to seven, 44 

Again the blood shall permeate and leaven, ^s 

Making his last state than the first far worse — 
So this lapsed generation, more perverse, ^6 

And more incurable sevenfold has grown. 
Than if it ne'er the way of life had known." 



Luke 

xi. 27 



A certain woman present cried out : " Blest 
The honored womb that bore Thee, and the breast 
That suckled thee !" He said, '^ Blest rather they ^^ 
Who hear the word of God, and it obey." 



" Thy mother and Thy brethren stand outside," ,^^^^ 
They said, "and wish to see Thee." He replied : '33 
" Who is My mother and My brethren ? Who, 3+ 
But such as God's commandments hear and do?" 35 

Another time, when crowds in myriads flocked xh^^i 
About Him, and approach to Him was blocked 



BEWARE OF COVETOUSNESS. 1 25 

By the compactness of this living wall, ^^^^ 

He said to His disciples : '' First of all, 

Avoid the leaven of the Pharisee, 

Which is false seeming and hypocrisy : 

In all the veins the dire infection lurks, 

Corrupts the blood and sure destruction works. "" 

For nothing 's covered up but shall be shown. 

And nothing hid but shall be fully known." 

Luke xii. 13-21 ; xiii. 1-9. 

'' Speak to my brother. Rabbi !" one there cried, ^3 
" That he th' inheritance with me divide." 
And Jesus said: " Man ! why to Me refer? "+ 

For who made Me your judge or arbiter?" 
Addressing those around. He said : '' Take heed ! 's 
Beware of covetousness, the sin of greed ! 
For a man's life is of a nature such, 
That it depends not on his overmuch." 
And then He spake to them this parable : ^^ 

'' A certain rich man's fertile fields bore well 
And plenteously. And he 'gan on this wise '7 

To vainly reason and soliloquize : 
' What shall I do, since Fve no room to store 
The produce of my acres any more ? 



126 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

ril do what thrift me counsels and forewarns : J^^^t 

All. lO 

I'll pull down present and build greater barns ; 
And there will garner all my goods and grain. 
Then to my soul say/Soul, thou hast much gain ^9 
Laid up for many years, so take thine ease 
Henceforth, eat, drink, thyself enjoy, and please.' 
God said to him, ' Thou foolish man, this night -° 

A sudden death thee unprepared shall smite ; 
Then whose shall be the treasures, which thou hast =' 
Heaped for thyself, and naught tow'rd God amass' d ?' " 

Some persons told Him, and desired His view, ^'"- ^ 
Touching the Galileans, Pilate slew, 
Lately, at one of the great yearly feasts. 
Mingling their blood with blood of slaughtered beasts 
Designed for sacrifice : Was theirs the fault ? 
Or his who made the murderous assault ? 
He said : " From facts like these, ye greatly err, ^ 
If ye preeminence of guilt infer. 
These Galileans sinners were 't is true ; 
But think not they were greater ones than you. 
Not special was the judgment on them sent; 
For you shall perish unless you repent. 3 

Nor think those eighteen men, on whom did fall * 



xm. — 



THE SPARED FIG TREE. 12;^ 

Siloam's tower, were sinners above all Luke 

The dwellers in Jerusalem, for you. 
Unless that ye repent, shall perish too." 

He spake this parable : '' A certain man, 
(Be timely warned ! repent ye while ye can !) 
Had planted in his vineyard a fig tree • 
And duly, at the proper season, he 
Came seeking fruit ; but when he found none there, 
He said to the vinedresser in despair, 
' Lo, these three years I've seeking come, and found 
No fruit. Why longer cumbers it the ground ? 
Cut th' useless fig tree down.' He answered, ' Sir, 
The order still one other year defer, 
Till I can dig about it and manure. 
Give it this chance to make the matter sure.' " 



128 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Mark 
iv. I 



XL 

WHAT THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE. 

Matt. xiii. 1-51 ; Mark iv. 1-32 ; Luke viii. 4-15. 

ENTERING a boat, He sat upon the Sea, 
And taught by parable and simile ^ 

The eager thousands gathered on the shore- 
The number growing every moment more. 

" Hearken ! A husbandman went forth to sow 3 
And as he with free hand the seed did strow, + 

Some by the wayside fell, trod under foot, 
The birds devoured before it could take root. 
Some fell on rocky ground, and sprang up soon, s 
But poorly rooted, withered before noon. . ^ 

'Mong choking thorns some fell ; while others found ^ 
Propitious lodgment in good mellow ground, ^ 

And multiphed, and brought forth fruit, behold 
Thirty and sixty and an hundred fold. 

He that has ears to hear it, let him hear J 9 

To docile minds the hidden truth is clear. 



WHAT THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE. 129 

The willful deaf, their ears to wisdom sealed, -IJ^ 

Shut out the grace unwilling to be healed. 

As choice is free, no power can make men choose 

The heavenly gift of knowledge they refuse : 

But ignorance need never be afraid 

To ask of God explanatory aid ; 

To seekers, and such only, light is given. 

To understand the mysteries of Heaven. 

So when alone, asked by the Twelve to tell, '"^ 

The Lord laid open thus the Parable : 

'' When one, with dull uncomprehending ears, ^5- 
The pubHshed Gospel of the Kingdom hears, 
Then comes the Wicked One, like evil bird. 
And snatches up the unregarded word 
On the unloving heart's hard surface strown. 
This is the wayside hearer, vainly sown. 
He that receives the seed on rocky site, "^ 

Is one that hears the word with quick delight, 
But, in himself not having root, soon falls, '^ 

When persecution or distress appalls. 
He, that among the thorns the seed receives, '^ 

Is one who hears the word, and half believes; 
But worldly cares, and riches' vain pursuit ^9 

9 



I30 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Choking the word, he fails to bring forth fruit. fj^!*^ 
That sown upon good ground, it him denotes, ^° 

Who, having heard the word, himself devotes 
To prayerful toil and tillage which ne'er cease, 
And bears and brings forth fruit, and makes increase, 
Out of the heart's enriched and heaven-blest mould, 
Thirty and sixty and a hundred fold. 



Another Parable spake He to show. 



Matt. 
xiii.24 



" Messiah's Kingdom, set up here below. 

Is like a man, that having good seed sown. 

While his men slept, his enemy, unknown, ^s 

Sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. 

When sprang the blade up at a later day ^^ 

And brought forth fruit, appeared the tares likewise. 

Then came his servants, filled with great surprise, ^^ 

And told the householder : ' Sir, didst not thou 

Sow good seed in thy field ? whence came or how 

These tares then that we see ?' He answered, 'One ^^ 

Who is an enemy has this thing done.* 

The servants say to him : ' Wilt thou we go 

And gather up the tares ? ' But he said, ' No, ^'^ 

Lest ye root up the wheat. Let them both stand 30 

Untouched till harvest ; then I will command 



WHAT THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE. i^i 



The reapers : ' Let it be your first concern, 
The tares to gather, and them bind to burn ; 
But let the ripe and separated corn 
Into my barn in purity be borne.' " 



«ifr 



Matt. 
xiii. — 



To His disciples, Jesus then declares 36 

The meaning of the Parable of tares : 
'' By Sower of the good seed understand, 37 

The Son of Man, the Tiller of the land. 
The field is the whole world He came to bless : 38 
The good seed are the sons of righteousness, 
The children of the Kingdom : but the tares, 
Sons of the Evil One, sown unawares 39 

By the arch-enemy, the Devil, who 
Wakes to beguile and frustrate and undo 
The benediction of the wholesome wheat. 
With cursing of the poisonous counterfeit :* 
The harvest is the end and final stage 40 

Of the revolving cycles of the age : 
The reapers are the angels — Christ shall send 41 

These forth to gather all things that offend, 

* The plant translated tares is supposed to be identical with the " darnel " {Lolium 
iemuietiticju), a poisonous weed or grass, the grains of which produce vomiting and 
purging, convulsions, and even death. The darnel, before it comes into ear, is very- 
similar in appearance to wheat. 



132 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

And them that do iniquity, at last, ^f ^ 

Out of His Kingdom, and they them shall cast ^^ 

Into a furnace of devouring fire — 
There shall be wailings loud and anguish dire. 
Then shall the righteous shine forth ever}^ one, 43 

In God their Father's Kingdom, like the sun. 
Wake up the sleeping function of the ear ! 
'T is for your life, consider what ye hear ! " 

" Messiah's Kingdom is," He said again, fj^^ 

"As if one should into the ground cast grain, 
And then should sleep, and night and day should rise, =7 
And see it spring and grow in unknown wise. 
For of itself the earth, without man's aid, ^^ 

Evolves continuously the sprouting blade, 
The ear, the full corn in the ear : the hand 
Puts in the sickle then and reaps the land. " =9 

He spake another Parable : " Christ's Reign 30 

Is like in its beginning to a grain 31 

Of mustard seed, a man sowed in his field, 
Which is the least of seeds, but holds concealed 32 
The greatest of all herbs. When grown, a shade 
By its great branches for the birds is made." 



WHAT THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE. 133 

Again He said to them : " The Reign of Heaven 
Is like in silent working unto leaven, J-i^"„ 

A woman hid in a large batch of meal, 
Till every part was made the change to feel." 

" ' T is like a treasure hidden in a field, 44 

Which a man finding, having it concealed, 
He goes and sells all that he has, and buys 
The field in which the buried treasure lies. 

^' 'T is like a merchantman, who everywhere 4s 

Roamed, seeking goodly pearls and jewels rare. 
And having found one pearl of worth most strange, ^^ 
He sold his ail and gave it in exchange. 

^' 'T is like a net, which, cast into the sea, 47 

Gathers the good and bad promiscuously : 

When it is full and drawn to shore, then they 48 

Preserve the good and cast the bad away. 

So shall the wicked from the just at last 49 

Be severed by the angels, and be cast 

Into a furnace of devouring fire, so 

There shall be wailing loud and anguish dire. 

'' Have ye these Parables all understood ? " si 

^'Yea, Lord!" they promptly answered. ''Very good.s^ 
See then ye turn them to good use ; for each 



134 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Instructed Scribe, that 's qualified to teach, 
Is like a householder who from his store 
Brings forth things new and old laid up before." 



THE SOWER. 



A husbandman went forth to sow : 

And, as with measured step, he swung 
An arm of vigor to and fro, 
The seed he flung. 

Some by the way-side fell, thence soon 
By birds devoured, not taking root ; 
On rocky places some, hot noon 
Withered the shoot : 

Some among choking thorns : but seed 
That into good ground fell, behold ! 
Sprung up and brought forth fruit with speed 
An hundred fold. 

O Saviour ! lest devouring bird. 

Or shallow soil, or choking thorn. 
Frustrate the mercy of Thy word, 
Make sure the corn ! 



THE TEMPEST STILLED. 



135 



XII. 

TEMPEST STILLED— AT GADARA— JAIRUS' DAUGHTER. 

Matt. viii. 18-27 ; Mark iv. 35— v. 20 ; Luke vm. 22-25. 

NEEDING repose, He said at eventide, j^^'"'^ 

'' Let us go over to the other side ! " 
The multitude dismissing, soon afloat, 36 

They took their wearied Master in the boat, 
Just as He was, and as they sailed. He slept. 
And a great storm of wind came down, and swept 37 
The Lake, and rolled— the while the night grew dark- 
Big angry waves that beat into the bark, 
So that it was now full, and sinking fast. 
Jesus was in the stern asleep. Aghast, 38 

Come His disciples, and Him roughly shake, 
So deep His slumber, crying, '' Master, wake ! 
Carest Thou not we perish ?" Straightway, He 
Arose, rebuked the wind, and to the sea 
Said : " Peace, be still ! " And the wind ceased, and 

there 
Was a great calm, and heaven and earth were fair. 



136 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

To His awestruck disciples then He saith : JJ^^^ 

'' Why were ye fearful, ye of little faith ? " 
These, filled with wonder, to each other say, ^'■ 

" What Man is this whom winds and waves obey ? " 

Preserved alive by these miraculous means, ^^^^ 
They reach the country of the Gadarenes — 
Arriving there as day began to break — 
Having passed down the whole length of the Lake : 
The boat forced southward, when the wind was strong, 
Out of its course had made the passage long. 

On a high hill, some distance from the shore, 
Looking far down, a thousand feet or more, 
Stood Gadara, a semi-heathen town. 
Proud of its riches, splendor and renown. 
With its long streets, and double colonnade, 
Its amphitheatre and marts of trade. 
It was no doubt a grand and glorious sight. 
Beheld there glittering in the morning light. 

The limestone cliffs 'bove which the city lay 
Were pierced with natural caves, as at this day — 
For dwellings used, or fashioned into rooms, 
With niches and appliances for tombs. 
The gloomy haunts unholy and defiled 
Of savage men and homeless outcasts wild. 



THE DEMONIAC AT GADARA. j^^ 

As Jesus left the boat, He met a man Mark 

Out of the tombs, who towards Him madly ran, 
A fierce demoniac, that none could bind 3 

Or tame ; who oft, when he had been confined, 
He chains and fetters had asunder riven, 4 

And out into the wilderness been driven. 5 

And he would wear no clothes, but, night and day, 
Was in the mountains and the tombs alway. 
Filling the air with bowlings, shrieks, and groans, 
And in his frenzy cutting him with stones. 
And when he Jesus from afar espied, 6 

He ran and worshipped Him, and loudly cried. 
In tones of terror, - What with Thee have I 
To do, Jesus, Thou Son of God Most High ? s 

I Thee adjure by God ( I know Thy power) 
Torment me not before th' appointed hour ! " 

And Jesus asked : - What is thy name ?" He said 9 
" Legion, for we are many." Then they pled 
Most earnestly, that He would not command 
Them to th' abyss, nor drive them from the land. 

Now on the neighboring mountain s steep incline," 
There was seen feeding a great herd of swine : 
Begging to enter these. He gave them leave 



138 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

('T was meet th' unclean the unclean should receive). 

Then when th' infernal frenzy was transferred, ^^[^ 

The total number of the swinish herd, 

About two thousand, all rushed down the steep 

Into the sea and perished in the deep. 

And the amazed and frightened swineherds fled, '+ 

And in the city and the country spread 

The wondrous tidings, and they came in mass 

To see just what it was had come to pass. 

Gathered to Jesus, they the maniac find ^5 

There sitting, clothed, and now in his right mind. 

Then, they, that witnessed it, began to tell, ^^ 

What the possessed and what the swine befell. 

Fear springs up quickly in the guilty heart ; 
Because of sin they wish Him to depart. ^7 

The cure was great, no doubt, and all divine. 
But what a loss were the two thousand swine ! 
The men of Gadara the Saviour weighed, 
And found Him wanting by the scales of trade. 
They had the power, if not the right to choose ; 
'T was their one chance to gain life or to lose. 
Had they been wise, they would have urged His stay. 
And not have turned the Lord of Life away. 



JAIRUS' DAUGHTER RESTORED TO LIFE. i^g 

When entering the boat, the man restored, ^^•'•s 

V. i5 

Healed with a double healing, leave implored 

To be with Him, henceforth. But, He said, '' No ! '9 

Back to thy house and to thy friends now go. 

And tell them what great things the Lord has done ; 

How He had mercy on the outcast one ! " 

Throughout Decapolis all things he blazed 

Jesus had done, and all men were amazed. 

Matt. ix. i, 18-35 ; Mark v. 21-43 ; Luke viii. 41-56. 

The Lord, meanwhile, across the Lake had come ^^ 
Back to the city of Capernaum. 
And a great multitude, advised before, 
Awaited Him, and welcomed Him ashore. 
Among them one, a ruler of the Jews^ 
Jairus by name, who hearing of the news 
Of His arrival, hastened Him to greet. 
He, when he saw Him, fell down at His feet, ^3 

And said to Him, with tears and sobbing breath, 
'' My only child Hes at the point of death. 
Come Thou, and lay Thy hands on her, that she 
May be made whole and live. Come instantly! " 

As He went with him — and there went along 
A numerous, hurrying, and pressing throng— 



140 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



A woman ( with incurable complaint, ^^^^ 

Of deep defiling ceremonial taint — 

A flow of blood, that baffled had the skill 

Twelve years of all physicians — still, ^e 

Not getting better, rather growing worse. 

Her living spent, left with an empty purse), 

Of Jesus having heard came in the press, "^^ 

And with believing fingers touched His dress, -^ 

Not doubting healing power there lay concealed ; 

And, lo, straightway, she felt that she was healed. ^9 

Knowing that from Him virtue had gone out, 

Jesus immediately turned Him about, 3° 

And said : '' Who touched My clothes just now ? " 

And His disciples said to Him, '' See'st thou 31 

The crowd all pressing Thee, and dost Thou ask. 

Who touched Me ? " When the woman saw no masks^ 

Could hide her, she came trembling to His feet, 33 

And told how she was healed. In accents sweet 

He said to her : ''Thy plague shall henceforth cease.34 

Daughter, thy faith has cured thee, go in peace ! " 

While He yet spake, word came, " Thy daughter 's 

dead, 35 

Why trouble thou the Master? " Jesus said : 36 



JAIRUS' DAUGHTER RESTORED TO LIFE. i^i 

" Fear not, only believe ! " He suffered none, ^^""^ 
Except the parents, Peter, James and John, 38 

To enter in with Him. '' Why weep ? " He said 39 
To weeping friends, ''she sleeps, she is not dead — '"^ 
[Not dead beyond recall. There are two lives, 
And life is while organic life survives.] 
They laugh His words to scorn. These sent away, ^^ 
The others entered where the dead girl lay. 
Taking her hand, He said : " Damsel, arise ! " 41 



* A person lies dangerously ill. At length the eyes close, the breast ceases to heave 
and the heart to beat. We say the man is dead, and say truly. So far as sentietit life 
is concerned he is dead absolutely, dead beyond recall. But it does not follow that 
organic life is wholly extinct. Nearly all the tissues retain their vital properties to a 
certain extent for some time afterward. For example, Contractility of the muscular 
fibre, which is a property of life, continues to manifest itself by contractions more or 
less violent, under the action of galvanism and other stimuli. The formation of sugar 
in the liver is a vital function; and the curious fact has been demonstrated that its pro- 
duction had not ceased twenty-four hours after the death of the animal. It might have 
been literally true, therefore, that the child was both dead and not dead— dead in one 
sense but not in another. 

It would seem more proper to speak of this case, and those other cases of miraculous 
revival recorded, viz., the son of the widow of Nain and Lazarus— as examples of 
resuscitation, i. e., of restoration to [mortal] life, rather than of resurrection from the 
dead, Christ Himself being "the first fruits of them that slept." His case may be re- 
garded as peculiar, inasmuch as there was exemplified in Him both a revival and a true 
resurrection, meaning thereby, the raising up, or assumption of a spiritual body, incor- 
ruptible and immortal. The prophetic words, " Thou wilt not suffer Thy Holy One 
to see corruption" would seem to indicate that it was intended that structural liie 
should not be allowed to become extinct, which might easily have happened without 
a miracle, considering the brief time that He was in the tomb. It is doubtful whether, 
even in the case of Lazarus, who had been dead four days, the organic tie was broken. 
The power of cold in preventing putrefactive changes is wonderfully shown in the 
well known case of the mammoth of the Siberian Cave, the flesh of which was found 
sweet and fresh thousands of years after death. 



142 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



And she, directly, opening her eyes, ^^^^ 

Rose up and walked, for she was twelve years old. 
And they were much amazed. They then were told,43 
To give her something nourishing to eat ; 
For life is not sustained except by meat. 



Two blind men waited for His coming out. 



Matt. 
ix. 27 



As He was passing on His homeward route. 
These followed Him, repeating all the way, 
'* Thou Son of David, pity us, we pray ! " 
Arrived at home, the blind men entered too. ^^ 

" Believe ye," Jesus said, " I can this do? " 
They say, '' Yea, Lord ! " He spake, and touched their 
eyes. ^^ 

" As is your faith be it to you likewise." 
Straightway their eyes were opened, and He said : 3^ 
" Let no man know it !" But they disobeyed. ^^ 

As they went forth a dumb man was brought in, 32 
Who with a demon long possessed had been ; 
His powerful word the devilish thraldom broke, 33 
And the freed tongue loud hallelujahs Avoke. 
Blaspheming Pharisees said : " By, no doubt, 34 

The Prince of demons, demons He casts out." 



THE TWELVE SENT OUT. 



143 



XIII. 

TWELVE SENT OUT— FIVE THOUSAND FED— TRUE BREAD. 

Matt. ix. 35-38 ; x. i, 5-39 ; Mark vi. 6-13 ; Luke ix. 1-6. 



And Jesus sent the Twelve, and gave for seal 
Them power to cast out demons, and to heal : 
And charged them, saying : '' As by twos ye go, 
Go not, this time, among the Gentiles ; no, 
Nor any city of Samaria 



Matt- 
ix- 35 



AND Jesus went about from place to place, 
•^ ^ Employed in arduous ministries of grace : 

But when He saw the multitude, and knew, 36 

How dark their state, and how distressfvil too. 

Like sheep without a shepherd, all astray. 

With no sure hand to guide them in the way — 

Moved with compassion, boundless as the sea, 

He said to His disciples: " Verily, 37 

Abundant is the harvest, but how scant 

And few the laborers ! To meet this want. 

Pray, that the great Lord of the harvest send 38 

Into His harvest laborers without end." 



X. 5 



144 ^^^ LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Enter, but go ye rather to the stray ^*^g*- 

And lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

And as ye go, proclaim aloud and tell 7 

The Reign of Heaven impends. The sick restore ; 

The lepers cleanse ; make live the dead once more ; ^ 

Cast demons out — not for reward or fee, 

Free your receivings, be your givings free. 

Nor, for your journey, do yourselves equip 9 

With money in your girdles ; nor with scrip ; ^» 

Nor with two coats ; nor staves ; nor shoes for feet — 
Because the workman 's worthy of his meat. 
Salute no man, nor linger by the way : " 

Into whatever house ye enter, stay ^^ 

Content till ye go thence ; and peace implore 
Upon the house as ye pass in the door — 
Peace on the house, if worthy, shall remain ; ^3 

If not, to you it shall return again. 
And whosoever shall you not receive, "-^ 

Nor hear your words, as you the city leave, 
The dust shake from your feet — a fiercer doom ^5 

Than Sodom's or Gomorrah's shall consume. 
He that hears you, hears Me ; despising you, 
He Me despises and My Father too. < 



THE TWELVE SENT OUT. I .r- 

'' Behold, I send you, as defenceless sheep -^^^"^J^- 

Forth in the midst of wolves and perils deep. 
Be wise as serpents, harmless be as doves ; 
Exceed all hatreds by outnumbering loves. 
Be on your guard against malicious men, ^r 

Who lie in wait to find occasion, then 
Stand ready to the Councils to betray — 
The Sanhedrim and lesser ones — for they 
Will scourge you in the synagogues ; and ye 
'Fore kings and governors shall cited be ^^ 

On My account, to testify the true 
Against the false of Gentile and of Jew. 
Be not solicitous and in suspense ^9 

About what ye shall say in your defence ! 
Appropriate speech that hour shall you be given. 
For 't is not you that speak but Power from Heaven — ^^ 
The Holy Spirit shall your cause defend, 
Shall be your Spokesman, Advocate and Friend." 

Strange heart of man ! so mad against the truth. 

Bloody, unnatural, and void of ruth ; 

Hating the light with hatred so intense, 

God's saving Word 's a furious offense. 

All holy ties, not meant to have an end. 

See Bigotry's red hand stretched forth to rend ! 
10 



146 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

" Brother shall yield his brother up to death ; ^^f; 
Father his child ; and with unfilial breath 
Children their parents shall accuse ; and ye, 
The special objects of men's hate shall be, ^^ 

For My name's sake. But whoso shall endure 
Down to the end makes his salvation sure ! 

'' If in one city they shall you oppose, ^3 

Flee to another ; sure, in spite of foes. 
The truth shall prosper, and the seed take root 
In hearts of not a few, and bring forth fruit. 
Ere your round 's finished, make what speed you can, 
Already will have come the Son of Man : 
In no gross sense His Kingdom will appear. 
Being within you, it is now and here. 

" Expect hard usage. A disciple 's not ^4 

Above his Master. Learn to bear your lot. 
It is enough, if the disciple fare ^5 

E'en as his Master, and the servant share 
The treatment of his Lord. If they traduce 
And Me revile, they '11 not spare you abuse. 
Fear not ! Be stout of heart ! Keep nothing back, ^^ 
Though thousand slanders bay along your track ! 
There 's nothing covered but shall be revealed — 



THE TWELVE SENT OUT. j^y 

No guilt, no innocence shall lie concealed. ^^_"- 

I have no secrets for the favored few, ^7 

No esoteric teachings meant for you : 
That told vou in the dark, speak in the light ; 
That whispered in your ear, tell from a height. 

" Be not afraid of them who can control =** 

The body's life, but cannot kill the soul ; 
But fear Him rather, who has power as well 
That to destroy, and both cast into hell. 
Are not two sparrows for a farthing sold ? ^9 

Yet not one falls without your Father — told 
And numbered are your head's unvalued hairs — ^° 
Who cares for sparrows much more for you cares. 31 
The brave for truth and right with love inflamed, 32 
Who Me 'fore men confesses, unashamed, 
I '11 him confess, and openly will own 
Before My Father seated on His throne. 
But whoso shall deny Me before men, 33 

Him ril deny before My Father then. 

" Though peace was sung by angels at My birth, 34 
I came not to send peace upon the earth ; 
Rather a sword. For that the peace I bring, 
Onl}' from inward purity can spring, 



148 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Where this is not, there flows a muddled stream, ^^^''^• 

Foul with all lusts and enmities extreme. 

Peace is impossible where hatreds dwell, 

Else ye might seek it in the heart of hell. 

See Love the smitten cheek turn to the foe ! 

The very meekness prompts the second blow. 

When the fierce vulture tears it from above, 

'T were wrong to blame the unoffending dove. 

Peace walks with Love in a retired path. 

When, forth from ambush, springs the waiting Wrath. 

It needs must be, so long as Sin remains 

In throned possession of the heart and brain. 

There should be fierce antagonisms abroad. 

And war against the government of God. 

" I come to set at variance and strife 35 

A man against the author of his life ; 
The daughter 'gainst the mother : among those 
Of his own household shall be found his foes. 36 

Who father loves and mother more than Me, 37 

Unworthy My disciple is to be. 
And who that loves a son or daughter more — 
Putting mere natural loves My love before, 
Preferring these to the transcendent claims 
Of Duty under all its various names — 



THE TWELVE RETURNED. 



149 



Of true discipleship he gives no sign, ^^^• 

And is unworthy to be reckoned Mine. 

'' Who follows Me, he must himself deny: 38 

All evil lusts and likings crucify, 
Nail them as malefactors to the cross, 
And count all sinful gains eternal loss. 
Who for My sake shall cowardly refuse 39 

To risk his life, his life of life shall lose ; 
While he, who freely gives his life away, 
Shall find it glorified some future day." 

When Jesus of His charge had made an end — '''• ^ 
Giving it scope, all time to comprehend, 
To fortify them against trials near. 
And persecutions through their whole career — 
The Twelve went forth, and preached men should 
repent, ^5J^^ 

And healed and cast out demons as they went. 
But the great Master did not, for this cause. 
In His undelegated labors pause. 

Matt. xiv. 13-36 ; Mark vi. 30-56 ; Luke ix. 10-17 ; John vi. 15-69. 

Once more the Apostles were together brought. 
And told to Jesus all they did and taught. j!-^''^ 



150 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

'' Come ye apart/' He said with gracious smile, f^''_^ 
'' Into a desert place and rest awhile." 
For crowds that came and went so thronged His feet, 
They had not leisure so much as to eat. 
Therefore, by boat they privately withdrew. 32 

But many saw them leaving who them knew ; 33 

So, running round on foot, got there before 
Th' unhurrying boat had reached the farther shore. 
He going forth — instead of sharp protest 34 

Against this rude frustration of His rest- 
Seeing the multitude, like sheep without 
A shepherd scattered all forlorn about — 
Full of sweet pity, with entrancing speech 
Things that concerned their peace began to teach. 
His voice rang music from the mountain height, 
And ears drank in an infinite delight. 
So sweet the time, the hours unnoticed passed, 
Till the descending sun long shadows cast. 

Then His disciples coming to Him say : 35 

'' This is a desert place, send them away, 36 

That they may go somewhere them bread to buy ; 
For here they've naught to eat, and night is nigh." 
The God-man answers: '' Give ye them to eat !" 37 
They say : '' Two hundred pennyworth of meat 



FIVE THOUSAND FED. 



151 



Would not suffice to give a taste to each ; l^^''_^ 

Their needs our means of purchase far outreach." 
He asks : " How many loaves have ye ? Go see I" 38 
They, learning, say: ''Five, and two fishes." He, 39 
When they were brought to Him, at once commands. 
That all be made to lie down there in bands -^^ 

On the green grass — disposed in rank and file 
By hundreds and by fifties, in short while — 
Numb'ring about five thousand. Jesus took ^i 

The five loaves and two fishes, and with look 
Turned heavenward, blessed the loaves, and forthwith 

brake, 
And gave to His disciples, charged to make 
Free distribution until all were fed ; 
With the two fishes following the bread. 
When all were filled, then spake th' Almighty Host : ^^ 
" Gather the fragments up that naught be lost !" 
They filled (so strangely had the loaves increased) ^3 
Twelve baskets with the remnants of the feast. 

Rose from th' excited throng the whispered hum, {.'f^" 
'' Truly this is the Prophet that should come — 
Greater than Moses, who our fathers fed 
With manna — multiplying common bread : 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Matt. 

Xiv. 22 

23 



152 

Let us by force, if need be, make Him King." J°^ 

When Jesus saw they bent were on this thing, "s 
He straightway bade the Twelve to seek the shore. 
And to Bethsaida go by boat before. 
While He the multitude should send away 
Alone He climbed the mountain there to pray. 

The chill of early Spring was in the air, 
But Jesus knew what strength was found in prayer ; 
That weary hearts obtain divinest rest, 
When sweetly pillowed on the Father's breast. 
Darkness came on, but light from moon'^ and star 
Served to make objects visible afar ; ' 

And Jesus saw, reclining on the steep, ^^ 

Tempestuous winds the Lake's dark waters sweep, 
And saw, some thirty furlongs from the shore, 
His worn disciples toiling at the oar. 
By baffling winds and waves now wholly spent. 
And, in the fourth watch of the night, He went =s 
Towards them, walking on the sea. The sight ^^ 

Filled the amazed disciples with affright. 
" It is a spectre !" cried they out for fear. 
And Jesus straightway spake : " Be of good cheer ! 

*It being on the eve of the Passover (see John vii.) the moon must have been near 
its full. 



WALKING ON THE WATER. 1 53 

'T is I, your loving Lord, be not afraid ! " ^^^t. 

Impetuous Peter then transported said : ^^ 

" Lord ! bid me come to Thee, if it be Thou, 

L'pon the water." " Come ! I thee allow." =^9 

Leaving the boat, he on the waters stept, 

To go to Jesus — fear one moment slept — 

When rough winds bleAv a loud and angrier gust, 30 

Buoyant from vanit}" and not from trust. 

His feet began to stagger on the wave, 

And sinking fast, he cried out : '' Master, save ! " 

He said, while seizing him with hand stretched out, 31 

''O thou of little faith! why didst thou doubt? " 

Aboard, winds ceased, or changed to zephyrs bland,32 

And, lo, the bark came instantly to land. 

Kneeling they worshipped Him and said, ''Thy nod 33 

All things obey, Thou art the Son of God ! " 

When people came next day, and could not find {"J^," 
Jesus, Who, they supposed, had stayed behind — 
Knowing there was no boat, except the one 
Which the disciples bore, and them alone — 
They thought, as boats had from Tiberias come, ^3 
He might have crossed back to Capernaum. ^-^ 

So passing o'er the Lake they sought Him there, 



27 



154 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

And drawing nigh addressed Him speeches fair : Jf^" 

'' Rabbi, when cam'st Thou hither? " Jesus said : ^^ 

" Ye seek Me selfishly for sake of bread. 

Work not for food, which perishes each hour. 

But food which is eternal life and power — 

That which the Son of Man will give to you ; 

For Him has God the Father sealed as true. 



'' What works," they asked, " does God claim at our 
hands?" ^^ 

'' This work," He said, '' He first of all demands, ^9 
That ye believe on Him whom He has sent— 
By works of God this work is chiefly meant." 
They, therefore, said : " If sent from God, what sign 2° 
Show'st Thou to prove Thy mission is divine ? 
What greater work than Moses workest Thou, 
That we should Thy superior claims allow ? 
Our fathers in the wilderness were fed 31 

With ceaseless manna — Moses gave them bread 
From heaven to eat, not once, but day by day. 
While Thou dost stop at yesterday's display." 

Then Jesus said : " The bread, by Moses given, 32 
Was not the true and proper Bread from Heaven ; 
But that, My Father gives you, is the true » 



THE TRUE BREAD. 155 

Life-giving Bread of God come down to you, If^^ 
And all the world." Missing the sense, they said : 
" Lord, give us now and evermore this bread ! " 34 

Then He : " T am the Bread of Life, therefore, 35 
Who comes to Me shall never hunger more, 
And who believes on Me shall never thirst. 
But, as I told you plainly at the first, 3^ 

Though ye have seen Me, ye do not believe. 
All who will come I willingly receive. 37 

Ye frustrate not My mission who reject : 
'T is as the Father not as ye elect. 
I came from heaven to do not Mine own vvnll, 38 

But all the Father's pleasure to fulfill. 
The will of Him Who sent Me now is this : 39 

Of all which He has given Me I should miss 
Nothing — that every sorrowing one, -^° 

Who weeping comes, believing on the Son, 
Should perish not, but endless life obtain. 
And I at last should raise him up again." 

Accustomed long, their worldliness and pride ^^ 
Under some cloak of sanctity to hide. 
They murmured He descent from Heaven should 
claim, 



156 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Knowing they said His origin and name. J?^^^ 

Aware, the secret of their discontent 

Was that He to their schemes refused consent, 

Jesus then said : ''Cease cavil ! 'T is Love's law, -^3 

None comes to Me except the Father draw. 44 

Whether ye come, or whether 3^e depart, 

'T is all the same unless ye bring your heart. 

'T is in the prophets written and foretold, 4s 

^And they shall all be taught of God.' The old 

Is soon to cease. I come to build the new, 

And end all types by offering up the true. 

He, Who by prophets once His will made known, 

Has in these last days spoken by His Son. 

No one has seen the Father, only He 46 

Who is from God. Who hears Him, comes to Me. 47 



I am the Living Bread, the Heavenly Food, ^^ 

And He that eats My flesh and drinks My Blood -^^ 

Has life eternal. He in Me abides, 50 

And I in him in flowing crimson tides." 51 



Said many of His disciples, when they heard, 
'' 'T is a hard saying and a staggering word." 

And Jesus said to them : " Does this offend ? 
What if ye see the Son of Man ascend 



60 



61 
62 



THE TRUE BREAD. 15^ 

Up where He was before ? He'll still refresh J?^_^ 
Like food — the spirit quickens, not the flesh, ^3 

Which profits nothing. Lo ! the words I speak 
Are spirit and are life. The truth there seek. 
'T is not gross feeding and digesting meats — 
He that believes appropriates and eats." 

Many, who His disciples were before, ^ 

From this went back, and walked with Him no more. 
He to the Twelve : '' Go ye away also ? " ^7 

And Peter said : '' To whom, Lord, shall we go ? ^^ 
Thou hast the blessed words, and Thou alone. 
Of life eternal. We believe and own ^9 

Thou the Messiah art, th' Anointed One, 
And of the Living God th' undoubted Son." 




158 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



MORNING HYMN. 

Before the lark had left his nest, 

And at heaven's gate poured forth his lay, 
My wakeful soul was up and drest, 

And had gone up to meet the Day : 
On wings of love and strong desire upborne, 
Saluted the Original of Morn. 

Light of the World ! when Thou dost rise 

On the horizon of my heart, 
How quickly every sorrow flies. 

And shadows of the night depart ! 
Thy rays so tempered to the thirsty sight, 
It drinks unharmed the deluge of delight. 

Come, my Desire ! my spirit's Need ! 

My Morning Manna ! Heavenly Bread ! 
Incarnate Love ! on Thee I feed. 

By Thy humanity am fed. 
And, changed from glory unto glory, grow 
To bear Thy blessed image here below. 



WHAT DEFILES. 159 



XIV. 

WHAT DEFILES— SEVEN THOUSAND FED. 

• Matt. xv. 1-20 ; Mark vii. 1-23. 

SENT from Jerusalem, came Pharisees ^v."' 

And Scribes to watch Him. x\nd, when these 
Saw some of His disciples eat with hands ^ 

Unwashed, 'gainst the traditions and commands 
Delivered of the elders, they found fault, 
Saying : '' Whence comes this scandalous revolt 
Of Thy disciples, daring to transgress 
x\ncient traditions in their sacredness?" 
And Jesus said : " Ye hypocrites ! Most true ^ 

Is that Isaiah prophesied of you : ^ 

' This people with their lips Me homage pay, 
But their unloving hearts are far away/ 
In vain they worship Me, howbeit, when 
They teach for doctrine the commands of men ! 
You charge transgression. How dare you transgress 3 
God's dread commandment, solemn and express, 
By your traditions, frivolous and vain, 



l5o THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Annulling duties positive and plain? ^^!!: 

' Honor thy father and thy mother too,' 4 

Moses has said, ' pay filial reverence due ; 

And whosoever curses with vile breath 

Father or mother shall be put to death !' 

But ye maintain, if one averse, shall say 5 

Or to his father or his mother : ' Nay ! 

That which I have by which I might thee aid. 

Is 'Dedicated,' then his debt is paid — ^ 

Making the word of God, through this respect 

To your traditions, all of none effect." 

Calling He spake to those on either hand : ^° 

'' Hearken to Me each one and understand. 
Not things which go into the mouth defile ; " 

But that which issues from the mouth is vile. 
Whoso has ears to hear it, let him hear. 
The meaning to the pure in heart is clear." 

Said His disciples : '' Know, Thou didst displease " 
Greatly, by what Thou saidst, the Pharisees." 

s 

He said : " My Father will each plant uproot '' 

Not of His planting, and of evil fruit. 
Let them alone — blind leaders of the blind. '^ 

A fall into the ditch they both will find." 



THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. i6i 

When from the people Jesus had withdrawn, f^^^^-^ 
And with the Twelve into the house had gone — 
Themselves in doubt — they begged the Lord to tell 
The meaning of the spoken Parable. 

" Are ye so void of understanding too ? ^^ 

Perceive ye not, 't is not what enters you ^7 

Defiles ? The mouth receives the welcome food, 
And clean digestions sift out all the good. 
But what comes from the mouth, comes from the heart, 
And these pollute the man in every part. ^^ 

For from within the human heart proceed ^^ 

Adulteries, fornications, murders, greed, 
Thefts, wantonness, deceit, an evil eye, 
Pride, malice, foolishness, and blasphemy. 
These are the things which render a man vile— ^° 
To eat with unwashed hands does not defile. 



Matt. 

.XV. — 



Matt. xv. 21-38 ; Mark vii. 24-37 '1 ^'m- ^-Q- 

To hide Himself awhile from public view, 

Jesus arose, and to the coast withdrew ^^ 

Of Tyre and Sidon. Entering a house there 

He could not keep concealed with all His care. 

For, lo, a certain woman, born a Greek, ^^ 

A Syrophenician, made haste to seek 

The Mighty Healer out. She, at His feet 25 

II 



l62 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Falling, with cries Him ceased not to entreat ^^^h 

To help her daughter, grievously possessed 

Now with a demon. He her faith to test, ^^ 

Said to her : " Let the children first be fed. 

It is not good to take the children's bread 

And cast it to the dogs." '' Though this be meet, =7 

Yet, Lord, the dogs the children's crumbs may eat 

Which from the master's table fall." He saith, ^^ 

All sternness gone : " O woman, great thy faith ! 

For this word, go thy way ! faith hath such power, 

Thy daughter is made whole from this same hour." 

And He departing not long after this, J^i^^^ 

Passed through the precincts of Decapolis. 
Returning to the Sea of Galilee, 

Like as before He caused the blind to see ; ^y^"; 

The deaf to hear ; the dumb moreo'er to talk; 
Cured the deformed,"* and made the cripple walk. 
His healing power, though limitless and swift. 
That moral profit might attend the gift, 
Conditioned was on a receiving mind, 

* The primary and proper meaning of Kv2,?i6c is c7'ooked. The term would apply to 
a large class of deformities both of the trunk and the limbs. One of the epithets of 
Vulcan, who was born lame, was /cv/lAoTro^iwi'^crook-footed [club-footed?]. So 
far as we know Christ never created a lost member ; and so " maimed " is probably 
an incorrect rendering here, although the right one Matt, xviii. 8. 



SEVEN THOUSAND FED. 163 

And SO to no one method was confined. l\f^h 

Sometimes He chose, removed by miles of space, 
To make the air the channel of His grace ; 
Sometimes He smeared blind eyes with moistened 

clay 
In aid of faith, and then poured in the day. 

They brought to Him a man both deaf and dumb : ^f'^^ 
No sound of words could ever to him come, 
And so by signs alone, addressed to sight. 
Could he be made to understand aright. 
His fingers, wet with spittle, He applied 33 

Then to his ears, and touched his tongue, and sighed 
As He looked up to heaven, then broke the chain, 34 
Saying, " Be opened ! " and the man spake plain. 35 
And they the God of Israel praised aloud. 
Again He sought a refuge from the crowd. 

Once more the Lord of Nature, and our Lord, ^"^- ^ 
Vouchsafes to spread His hospitable board 
To meet the needs of a vast multitude 
Hungry from being three days without food. 
When He purveys 't is on a scale immense ; 
All forces troop to His omnipotence ; 
The powers of nature haste at His command 
To pour the fulness of the sea and land ; 



VUl. 



Mark 
vii. — 



j54 the light of the world. 

While all the mighty angels of the sky ^^^""^ 

Upon His errands ready are to fly. 

How awful is He ! how august ! how great ! 

But then how human ! how compassionate ! 

With tenderness unspeakable, He says 
To His disciples : '^ During three full days, 
These, fasting. Me have ceased not to attend. 
Some came from far, and I will not them send 
Away, lest they faint on the road, unfed." 
They say : " Whence can we get supply of bread. 
Here in the distant wilderness ? " '' Tell Me," 
The Master saith, " how many loaves have ye ?" 
They say : '' Seven and a few small fishes." When 
The multitude had all sat down, He, then 
Took the seven loaves and giving thanks, them broke 
Each fragment multiplying as He spoke 
In His creating hands to more and more — 
Then gave to His disciples, who them bore 
To all the wondering people. Having blessed 
The fishes, these were given with the rest. 
When all had eaten, and were satisfied, 
They gathered up seven baskets full beside. 
There were who ate four thousand men about. 
Women and children in the count left out. 



THE TRANSFIGURATION, 



165 



J 



XV. 

TRANSFIGURATION— DEMONIAC CURED— DUTIES. 

Matt. xvi. 13-20 ; Mark viii. 27-30 ; Luke ix. 18-21. 

ESUS, with mighty labors overtasked, ^f"" 

While on a journey, His disciples asked 
'' Who do men say I am?" They answered, "John ^3 
The Baptist ; some Elijah ; others one ^4 

Of the old Prophets, risen from the dead." 
" But who say ye I am?" the Master said. 's 

Peter replied : " Thou art the Christ of God."* 
He charged them not to publish it abroad. ^° 

Jesus from this time forth began to show ^^ 

To His disciples, how that He must go 
Up to Jerusalem, and that while there 
Much cruel treatment must be made to bear — 
False accusations, mockings, scourgings, blows. 
From elders, chief priests, scribes, His murderous foes. 
And be rejected of them, and then slain ; 
And after three days' burial rise again. 

* See The Evangel, pp. 177-81. 



l66 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Matt. 

XVi. 22 



He spake this openly. And Peter took 

His Lord aside, and 'gan Him to rebuke : 

" Be this far from Thee, Lord ! This shall not be !" 

But, turning, He to Peter said : " Get thee ^^ 

Behind Me, Satan, thou art an offense — 

Not savoring things of God but things of sense." 

Matt. xvii. 1-13 ; Mark ix. 2-13 ; Luke ix. 28-36. 

After six days of loving labors done, };^\l 

Jesus apart took Peter, James, and John 
To a high mountain-top, and while in prayer ^^ 

He was transfigured in their presence there. 
His face was as the sun, intensely bright ; 
And all His raiment glittering and white. 
And with Him talking, lo, two men were seen, 30 

Of glorious aspect and majestic mien, 
E'en Moses and Elijah, who then spake 31 

Of His decease, which should atonement make, 
To take place at Jerusalem ere long. 
Their eyes, fatigued and dazed with light too strong, 3^ 
jGrew heavy — Peter's and the rest — with sleep. 
But when they woke from slumber brief and deep, 
They saw His glory and the men. As they 33 

Were parting from Him, to prolong their stay. 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 167 

Peter said, '' Master ! it is good for us lf^± 

All to be here — Heaven's pomp around us thus — 
Let us three tabernacles make, to be 
For Moses and Elijah and for Thee" — 
Not knowing what to say or what he said. 
For they were in a maze and sore afraid. 

While he thus spake, from out a covering cloud 34 
There came a Voice, divinely sweet and loud, 35 

Which said, " Lo, this is My Beloved Son, 
Hear Him !" It ceased, and He was found alone. 36 
They kept it close, as Jesus to them said, 
Till after He had risen from the dead. 
In doubt what rising from the dead should mean, 
They yet spake naught of those things they had seen. 

Matt. xvii. 14-21 ; Mark ix. 14-29 ; Luke ix. 37-43. 

Next day, when they were come down from the hill,37 
He saw great multitudes assembled still; fl^""^, 

And the disciples, who remained below. 
Disputing with the Scribes, that sought to throw 
Shame on late failure. When the people saw '5 

The Master coming, they were struck with awe. 
And ran forth to salute Him. He, the Scribes '^ 

Addressing, asked the reason of their gibes. 



l68 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Then kneeling: came to Him a certain one, j^^""^ 

<^ ' IX, 17 

Who said : " Master, have pity on my son, 

For he 's a lunatic. All unawares, ^^ 

The demon takes him, throws him down and tears, 

The while he foams and grinds his teeth ; at length. 

He lies exhausted, drained of all his strength. 

And I to Thy disciples spake, but the}^. 

Trying to cast him out, failed in the essay." 

" O generation, faithless and perverse ! ^9 

HoAv long shall I be with you, and rehearse 

The same old lesson ? How long suffer you ? 

Bring thy son hither !" When he came in view, 2° 

Straightway the spirit tare him — with mad bound 

He, falling, rolled there, foaming, on the ground. 

He asked his father: " How long may it be, ^^ 

Since this him first befell ?" '' Since infancy," 

He said : '' It has him often in the past =^ 

Into the fire, into the water cast. 

Him to destroy. But if Thou canst do aught, 

Pity and help and let a cure be wrought." 

" All things are possible, if thou canst believe — ^3 

A little faith can mightiest things achieve." 

The father said, with pleading tones of grief, ""• 

" Lord I believe ; help Thou my unbelief !" 



xvii. 20 



THE DEMONIAC CURED. 169 

Then Jesus spake once more the word of power, f^^^^ 
And the possession ceased from that same hour. ^^ 
And the disciples asked Him privately : =^ 

"Wherefore could we not cast him out?" And He 
Said unto them : '' The reason was in brief ^^h", 

Th' exceeding greatness of your unbelief. 
For, I declare, if you, in very deed, 
Have faith but as a grain of mustard seed, 
Ye to this mountain, stablished on its base, 
Might boldly say, ' Remove to 3^onder place !' 
And it should pass. Yea, all things ye could do. 
And naught should be impossible to you." 

Who rightly trusts, with him divinely draws, 
The Cause of causes, and the Law of laws. 
Nothing 's too difficult beneath the skies. 
For God's vicegerent, be it fit and wise — 
Not that Omnipotence must bend to him, 
And be the tool of vanity and whim. 
A harder task than demons to expel 
Is sin to slay, and balk the powers of hell. 
Of all achievements, this is first and best, 
To triumph o'er the tyrants of the breast. 
Not without prayer and fasting can take place 
These mightier miracles of healing grace. 



Matt, 
xvii 21 



I^o THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

FAITH. 

The world is full ol pain ; 

Fierce sickness binds it fast ; 
And none can break the chain, 

That sin has round it cast : 
Philosophy essays, 

And Science goes about 
In many bootless ways, 
To cast the demon out : 
They magnify th' unchanging reign of law, 
And preach the gospel of the tooth and claw.* 

Ne'er wizard wove a spell 

That could the fiend eject ; 
But Faith the miracle 

Can easily effect : 
What not the law could do. 

Through weakness of the flesh, 
This strong is to renew. 

And nature mould afresh : 
Can bring down Heaven to exorcise my grief — 
'' Lord, 1 believe, help Thou my unbelief ! " 

*To men that "bite and devour one another," the Agnostic assurance, that what 
they do is but the normal and necessary outcome of the predatory instinct which they 
possess in common with all beasts of prey, may be comforting, but can hardly be 
deemed reformatory. If the primitive man was all beast in his origin and develop- 
ment, it is difficult to see, why he is more to blame than lions and tigers in obeying 
the promptings of his nature. Infidel science prides itself on its microscope and tele- 
scope, but finds no use for moral and spiritual lenses by which God is discovered and 
the infinite sweep of moral law is discerned. 



WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? I7I 

Matt, xvii, 24-. 7 ; Mark ix. 30. 

Come to Capernaum where He abode, ^S% 

Collectors said to Peter on the road : 
'' Does not your Master temple-tribute pay ? " 
Peter without just warrant answered, " Yea ! " ^s 

Entering the house, ere he had time to speak, 
Jesus said : '' Simon, I thy answer seek. 
What thinkest thou ? Of whom do kings of earth 
Tribute exact ? Of sons of royal birth, 
Or strangers ? " Peter said, "Of strangers." ''See, -^ 
Then," Jesus said, " the sons by right are free. 
But to avoid offense, go to the Lake, -7 

Throw line, and the first fish that's hooked, that take ; 
Opening its mouth thou shalt a stater* see. 
Take it and give it them for Me and thee." 
Opposed to the infinitudes of chance, 
How all surveying His omniscient glance ! 
Ten thousand proofs are here to end dispute 
That He of Godhead lacks no attribute. 

Matt, xviii. 1-35 ; Mark ix. 33-50 ; Luke ix. 46-50. 

While in the house, He asked the Twelve one day, 
'' What was it ye debated by the way ? " ^^^^'^ 

They held their peace, for they had had debate, 



IX- 33 

34 



* A stater was a Greek silver coin, equal to four drachmas or 72 cents. 



1/2 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Who of themselves might hope to be most great. ^^"^ 

Later they asked, that answer might be given, 

Who should be greatest in the Reign of Heaven ? ^^^^-f-^ 

He said : " If any man seek first to be, 

Let him be last in all humility. 

He who contends for precedence and place, 

Forfeits all standing in the Realm of Grace." 

Taking a child,* He held it up to view, ^ 

And said to them : " In truth I say to you, 3 

Except ye be converted, and be freed 

From vain ambitions and from worldly greed. 

E'en as this child, ye— shut out by your sin — 

Into M}" Kingdom cannot enter in. 

The low is high, the greater is the less, 4 

The mean is but inverted nobleness. 

Take heed how ye despise My little ones, ^° 

Who have the rights and privileges of sons. 

In heaven their angels, ministers of grace, 

Behold perpetually My Father's face. 

For I am come to save that which is lost " 

At every sacrifice and any cost." 

^'- "Was it Peter's child ?" Peter was so childlike a man, some have fancied that the 
child of one so childlike might properly serve as a typical example of genuine child- 
likeness. All children are not childlike. 



THE RULE OF FORGIVENESS. 173 

" Lord ! " Peter asked, " my duty to fulfill J^^^'-_^ 
How oft must I forgive a brother ? Till 
Seven times ? " "I say not seven, " He replied, ^^ 
" But seventy times seven and more beside. 
Therefore My Kingdom answers to a king, • 23 

Who with his servants sought a reckoning. 
One, who ten thousand talents owed, was brought : ^^ 
But, forasmuch as he to pay had naught, ^5 

His lord, to get back some of his lost gold, 
Commanded him, and all his to be sold. 
He, falling down before him, pled,* and prayed : ^^ 
" Have patience with me and thou shalt be paid." 
He moved with pity, having him unbound, ^7 

Forgave the debt. The same went out, and found ^^ 
One of his fellow servants, who him owed 
One hundred pence. He fiercely toward him strode, 
And took him by the throat, and loudly said : 
" Pay what thou owest me ! " He, kneeling, pled, ^9 
" Have patience with me and I will thee pay." 
But he refused to wait, and went straightway, 30 

And into prison ruthlessly him threw. 
Till he should pay the utmost that was due. 

* " Against her //ed.''^ — Spencer. " She //^af her cause." — C. Kingslev. 



174 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

The other servants, witnessing these acts, x^in"^i 

Were grieved, and went and told their lord the facts ; 

Who said, when he had been before him set, 32 

" Thou wicked servant ! I forgave thy debt 

At thy desire. Shouldst thou not ruth have known, 33 

When so much pity had to thee been shown ? " 

The lord was wroth, and put him to the rack, 34 

And held him bound till he should pay all back. 

If ye forgive. My Father will you too, 35 

But if ye do not, neither will He you." 



Luke 

X. I 



Luke x. i, 17-20. 

The Lord appointed other Seventy, sent 
Them out by twos — as the Apostles went 
Awhile before — into each town and place. 
Whither the Lord would come — with gifts of grace, 
And signs of power, that all might understand. 
The Reign of the Messiah was at hand. 



Luke 
ix. 57 



'' Master!" a certain Scribe said eagerly, 
"Where'er Thou goest I will follow Thee !" 
He said : '' To follow Me, art thou aware, ss 

Is loss, contempt, and poverty to bear ? 
Foxes have holes, and birds of heaven their nest. 
But I 've no home, nor where My head to rest." 



RETURN OF THE SEVENTY. 1 75 

" Follow thou Me ! " He to another said. p^"^^ 

But he replied : '' My father is just dead ; 
To go and bury him me first allow." 
'' Do what's more urgent !" Jesus said. " Go thou ^^ 
And preach the Reign of God ! Thy first is t' obey, 
And not to frame excuses for delay. 
Let the dead bury, if need be, the dead — 
To save the living be thy work instead." 

Another prayed : '' Let me first bid farewell ^^ 

To those at home." He answered : " I thee tell, ^^ 
Who, their hands putting to the plough, look back, 
They for God's Kingdom needful fitness lack." 

Those sent, returning, with glad voice exclaim : ^- ^7 
** Ev'n demons. Lord, are subject through Thy name." 

" I Satan saw as lightning fall from heaven : 
O'er ail the enemy you power is given. ^<^ 

Yet joy not spirits at your bidding fly, ''° 

But that your names recorded are on high." 



I'j6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



XVI. 

JERUSALEM VIA SAMARIA, 

Luke ix. 51-56 ; xvii. 12-18. 

/^jPMIE time for His assumption''' nigh fulfilled, J^^^^ 
-» Henceforth, with steadfast heart and mind, He 

willed 
To go up to Jerusalem once more : 
And so, He messengers sent on before, 5= 

Who, having come, as lying in the way, 
Into a village of Samaria, 

Made ready for Him. When He came to them, 53 
Because His face was towards Jerusalem, 
The men would not receive Him. Filled with ire, 54 
Spake James and John : ''Lord ! wilt Thou that we fire 
Call down from heaven, and all these consume, 
As did Elijah, by a righteous doom ?" 
Jesus rebuked them, and mild answer gave : 55 

'' I came not to destroy men's lives but save." ^6 

And they went to another village. Then, 
As they vv^ere entering it, they met ten men, 

* Otherwise His " taking up " or return to His Father. 



Luke 
xvii. 12 



THE FEAST OF THE TABERNACLES. I'jj 

That lepers were, who at a distance stood, xv?- 

And with shrill voice cried loudly as they could : ^3 
"■ Master, have mercy on us !" He said : '' Go, '^ 

And to the priests present yourselves, and show 
That ye are clean !" And as they went, each one 
Was cleansed : but of the total number, none 
Returned save only a Samaritan ; ^5 

Who, finding he was healed, turned back, and ran 
And fell at Jesus' feet, and kissed the sod, ^^ 

Giving Him thanks, and glorifying God. 
He said : '' Were not ten cleansed ? Where are the 
nine ? 17 

Could they of gratitude afford no sign — 
Leaving this stranger the exception sole ? ^^ 

Arise !" He said, ''thy faith has made thee whole." 

John vii. 8-52 ; viii. 1-12, 28, 36, 56-59. 

Jesus delayed His coming to the Feast, \?^\ 

Feast of the Tabernacles, last not least 

Of the great Festivals — each happy day 

Of all the sacred seven made glad and gay 

With boughs of myrtle, ohve, pine, and palm, 

Formed into booths, or waved, with chanted psalm 

And sound of trumpets, timbrels, horns and flutes, 
12 



178 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

In celebration of ingathered fruits. ^Jj9^"_ 

On the third day the Jews found Him they sought, ^4 

Now come. He to the Temple went and taught ; 

And all who heard Him wondering comment made ^5 

Upon th' amazing Avisdom He displayed, 

Not having letters learned. He said : " Not mine ^^ 

My doctrine is, not human but divine. 

I am God's mouth. Whoso God's will shall do, ^^ 

He shall discern between the false and true. 

Th' obedient only has the seeing mind ; 

Who hates the truth is blindest of the blind. 

Who speaks not of himself, he truly speaks. ^^ 

He is of God who God's sole glory seeks. 

'' I know that murder in your hearts is hid — ^9 
And is not murder in your law forbid ? 

Why do ye seek to kill Me ? Can ye tell ? =^° 

Is it because I wrought a miracle ^^ 

Of healing ere now on the Sabbath day ? . ^^ 
And is My life the forfeit I must pay ?" 

As many of the people had been Avon 31 

To say : '' What greater things could Christ have 

done?"— 

The Pharisees conceived the danger prest, 32 

And so sent officers to Him arrest. 4° 



MURDEROUS PLOTTINGS. lyg 

But half convinced themselves by what they heard, ^^fj^"^ 
These would have taken Him, but were deterred, ^5 
Saying (when asked, Why have ye not Him brought?) 
'' Sure never man like this man spake or taught !" 46 
Enraged they said : '' Are ye likewise deceived ? 47 
Who of the rulers have on Him believed ? ^s 

As for the people, who know not the law, 49 

They 're cursed fit ravin for the devil's maw." 
Said Nicodemus (he that came by night 50 

Being one of the Council), "Is it right ^i 

Under our law to judge a man unheard ?" 
They said : '' Art thou of Galilee ? The Word 52 

Search through and through — look where you will, 

and see 
If any prophet springs from Galilee ?" 

He to the Mount of Olives went at night, ^'"- ^ 

But to the Temple came at morning light. ^ 

Such was His daily wont. All through the Feast 
His holy toil for others never ceased. 
As there He sat and all the people taught, 
The Scribes and Pharisees a woman brought, 3 

And set her in the midst — her face aflame, 
A piteous spectacle of guilty shame. 



iSo THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

They say to Him : " Teacher ! this woman here ^.^^"^ 
Was taken in adultery — -her guilt is clear. 
Such Moses in the law bids us to stone — 5 

What sayest Thou of her ? " Their malice known, ^ 
Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote 
Upon the ground, not seeming to take note. 
Continuing to ask, He raised His head, ^ 

And with a look that searched their souls, He said : 
" Let him among you all, who 's without sin. 
Cast the first stone at her, and so begin 
( If law and penalty are both so plain ) 
To execute the sentence ye ordain." 

Again He forward leaned and wrote ; and they ^ 
All, one by one, slunk silently away, 9 

Till with the woman He was left alone. 
And lifting up Himself when they had gone, '° 

He said, '' Where are they, woman ? Did no one 
Assume to sentence thee ?" She said, ''Lord ! none."" 
And Jesus said : '' Neither do L Therefore 
Go thou thy way, and henceforth sin no more ! " 

Jesus, our Sun, spake, saying: " I the Light " 

Am of the world — I give new powers of sight. 
Who follows Me no more shall darkling grope, 



TRUE FREEDOM. jgj 



But have the Hght of life and joy of hope. ^J^J^^ 

When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, =3 

Then shall ye know that I am He, and can 

Do naught alone. The Sender's with the Sent — ^9 

I do not singly act — two wills are blent, 

Making one will. The Father smiling sees 

I always do those things that will Him please." 

Man}', when He pronounced these words, believed. 3° 

'' If ve hold fast to that ye have received," 31 

He said, '' M}^ true disciples then are ye— 

Knowing the Truth, the Truth will make you free." 32 

They answered: ''We be Abr'am's seed, and were 33 

Never in bondage yet, as we aver : 

How sayest Thou, 'Ye '11 be made free ?' " He gave 34 

Swift answer : " Whoso sins, he is the slave 

Of sin, not free till he from sin is freed — . 35 

He, whom the Son makes free, is free indeed. 36 

Your father Abraham rejoiced My day 56 

To see, and seeing it was glad." They say : 57 

" Thou art not fifty yet, and Abraham 

Hast Thou seen ?" " Yes, ere Abr'am was I am." 58 

They took up stones intending Him to slay, sg 

But Jesus hid, and passed unseen away. 



Luke 
x. 25 



182 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Luke x. 25-42. 

" Master ! " a lawyer said, inviting strife, 
'' What shall I do to gain eternal life ?" 
He said : " What says the law ? the path's well trod."^^ 
He answered : '' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God ^7 
With all thy heart and soul and strength and mind. 
And love thy neighbor as thyself." '' I find," '^ 

He said, " thou answerest right. This do and live." 
Willing to justify himself, and give ^9 

Excuse for his short-comings, he began : 
" Who is my neighbor? " Jesus said : " A man 3° 

Went from Jerusalem to Jericho, 
And fell 'mong thieves, who stripped, and gashed him 

so, 
He seemed half dead, then left him where he lay. 
It chanced, a certain priest came down that way, 31 
And, when he saw him, hastened by amazed. 
Likewise a Levite passing, stopped, and gazed 32 

A moment curiously, then did the same. 
But a Samaritan, a stranger, came 33 

There where he was ; and, seeing his sad plight, 
He, filled with pity, hastened to alight. 
And went to him with merciful design, 34 

Bound up his wounds, and poured in oil and wine, 



GOOD SAMARITAN.— MARTHA AND MARY. 183 

Set him on his own beast, and brought with care ^"^^ 
Him to an inn, and stayed and nursed him there. 
Next day when leaving, giving to the host 35 

Two pence,* he said : ' Take care of him, the cost 
I will repay thee when I come again.' 

• Which of these three, I ask thee to explain, 36 
Was neighbor to the man, himself a Jew ?" 

' He who showed mercy." "Go thou and thus do !"37 

He came to Bethany, a village near 38 

Jerusalem, place memorable and dear, 
As the abode of those whom Jesus loved. 
And whose affection He had often proved. 
O glad was Martha, Mary, Lazarus, 39 

To have their roof once more distinguished thus ! 
How shall their love and worship be exprest 
Tow'rd their great Friend, who deigns to be their 

Guest ? 
What will best please Him ? Is it for a meal 
(It is to Martha that we make appeal) 
He condescends to enter your low door ? 
Plain wholesome food He asks and nothing more. 
The Lord of Life, in whom all creatures live, 

* Dr. S. Davidson, quoted by Geikie, estimates the purchasing value of two denarii 
(pence) to have been equal to from six to seven shillings sterling. 



1 84 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Luke 
tr>^ • ""• X.— 



From thee wants little, and has much to give 
He in His hands the bread of life doth bear — 
What for thy many dishes does He care ? 
Little avails thy running to and fro ; 
There is a better way th}^ love to show. 
If thou wouldst please Him, lend thy heart and ear. 
He'll spare one dish to give thee chance to hear. 
Rest from thy worry : one brief moment stay, 
Nor deem the time thus spent is thrown away. 

But Martha — flurried, hot with haste and heat — ^o 
Beholding Mary at the Saviour's feet, 
Hearing His words of wisdom, love and grace, 
A mighty pleasure beaming from her face. 
Fearing to lose a word He had to say, 
The more because He had not long to stay — 
Words of complaint and blame 'gainst her advanced. 
Distracted speech, that at the Master glanced, 
Her whirling thoughts unable Him to spare. 
Saying thus wildly : '' Lord ! dost Thou not care 
My sister has me left to serve alone ? 
Bid her to share the burden on me thrown !" 
And Jesus answered : " Martha, Martha, thou, '^^ 

Witness thy fretful speech and clouded brow, 
Careful and troubled art, full of unrest. 



THE MAN BORN BLIND. 185 

Concerning- many things to please thy Guest : ^"^^ 

But one is needful — Mary's chosen part, 42 

To sit and give her hospitable heart, 

And learn of Me. Let her therefore remain ! 

Her place beside Me she shall still retain." 

John ix. 1-4T ; x. 1-42. 

As Jesus passed along the public wa}^, Jj°^" 

He saw a man whose eyes ne'er knew the day, 
Quite blind from birth, reduced to beg his bread. 
And the disciples to their Master said : ^ 

" Whence comes this heavy judgment ? for whose sin, 
His or his parents' ?" Jesus said : " Therein 3 

Lies not the cause ; on them no blame doth rest ; 
But that God's work should be made manifest. 
Judge naught before the time, but humbly wait : 
God in the end His ways will vindicate : 
As in this case, whereby th' occasion 's given, 
To show^ the pity and the grace of Heaven. 
I must, while it is day, the hours are few, 4 

Finish the work here given Me to do. 
And on the earth My Father glorify : 
The day is passing, and the night is nigh. 
While I am in the world, lo, I the Light s 

Am of the world, and to the blind am sight." 



1 86 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Having said this, He spittle mixed with earth, Jj^^^ 
And smeared his eyes who had been blind from birth, 
And told him : " Go, wash in Siloam's spring I" 7 

He went, and came back seeing. Wondering 
Neighbors, who him. had seen when blind, began ^ 
To ask each other, "Is not this the man 
Who sat and begged ?" Made certain it was he, 9 
They questioned him : *' How is it thou dost see ?" ^^ 
"A man called Jesus smeared my eyes with clay. 
And said, ' Wash in Siloam's Pool 1 ' Straightway 
I saw." They to the Pharisees him brought '3 

('T was on the Sabbath day the cure was wrought), '^ 
Who asked him how it was ? He answered : " He ^s 
Put clay upon my e3^es ; I washed and see." 
Some of their number said : " This man is not '^ 

From God, for He the Sabbath day would blot." 
While others said : ''How can a sinner do 
Such miracles ?" And thence a schism grew. 
They asked the man who had been blind again : 
" What dost thou say He is ?" He said : " 'T is plain 
He is a prophet." But the Jews denied 
He had been bhnd, till they had called, and plied 
With questions both his parents : " Do ye say 
This is your son, born bhnd?" They answered 
"Yea! 



17 



18 



19 



THE MAN BORN BLIND. 187 

That he 's our son, and was born blind is so : J^.- 

But how it is he sees we do not know. -^ 

He is of age, ask him !" — observing heed ^^ 

Not to offend the Jews, who had agreed, 

Who owned Him Christ, should be (so great their rage) 

Cast out— so said, ' Ask him, he is of age.' ^^ 

A second time they called the man born blind, -+ 

And said to him : " Give God the praise ! We find 

This Man 's a sinner." " Whether He be so "^ 

Or not," he answered, '' this one thing I know, 

That whereas I was blind I now do see." 

They said again : " What did He do to thee ?" =^ 

" I 've told already, and ye did not hear — ^t" 

Will ye be His disciples ?" Void of fear. 

No more he minced his words, but spake out bold, 

From their nude malice stripping every fold. 

They then reviled him, saying scornfully : ^^ 

" So thou art His disciple. Not so we : 

Moses' disciples we are. God, vv^e know, ^^ 

Did speak to Moses a long time ago— 

As for this Man we know not whence He is." 

" How strange ! since power to give me sight is His, 3° 

Ye know not whence He is ! God does not hear 3^ 

Sinners, but those who worship Him and fear. 



j83 the light of the world. 

Not since the world began can ye once find, j^^^^ 

That any man gave sight to one born bUnd. 

Were not this man from God He could do naught — 33 

I dare to tell )^ou plainly my own thought." 

" Dost thou presume, born child of sin and hell, 34 

Us to instruct?" they said. They him expel. 

Jesus had heard that they had cast him out, 35 

And having met him, going on His route. 
He said to him, as by His side he trod, 
" Dost thou believe upon the Son of God ?" 
*' Who is He, Lord, that so I may believe ? 36 

^ly heart thou hast made ready to receive." 
'' Not only hast thou seen Him, but 't is He 37 

Who at this present moment talks with thee." 
*' Lord ! I believe " — and fell down at His feet. 38 

And Jesus said : '' Lo ! I, for judgment meet, 39 

Am come into the world of lost mankind ; 
That who see not, may see, who see be blind." 
Some Pharisees, applying this remark, 40 

Said : " Are we blind, and dwell we in the dark ?" 
'* Were ye without the means or power to see, 
Blind in this sense, ye then from sin were free. 
But since ye boast the keenness of your sight, 



41 



John 
i.x. — 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 189 

x\nd close your eyes because ye hate the light. 
Your sin remains. To test your love or hate 
I come, the touchstone of your moral state. 
What help is there, if wilful and perverse. 
Ye shall the blessing turn into a curse ? 

" Mark the similitude I now begin : 
Whoso into the sheepfold enters in, 
Not by the door of fitness and of right, 
But climbs the wall by stealth and in the night, 
He is a thief and robber. Evermore 
The shepherd enters onl}^ by the door. 
To him the porter opes without delay, 
And all the sheep his well known voice obey : 
He calls his sheep by name and leads them out — 
Walking before, they follow him about ; 
But while they '11 follow him from love and choice, 
The}^ '11 flee a stranger, knowing not his voice." 

When they had heard, and did not comprehend, 
Jesus spake further then to the same end : 
" I am the Door, the true Door of the sheep : 
All rival claimants are impostors deep — 
I am the Door and Keeper of the door ; 
Who by Me pass shall safe be evermore ; 



igo THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

They shall go in and out and pasture find, J°^_" 

Secure from wolves and thieves of bloody mind. 

I am the Food and Feeder of the flock : ^° 

I all My fulness will to them unlock ; 

I come to give them life, life more and more. 

Life higher, better, and in ampler store. 

I the Good Shepherd am. M}^ love so deep, " 

I give My life to save th' imperiled sheep. 

Not so the hireling. When the wolf draws nigh, " 

He of his safety thinks and hastes to fly — '3 

Because a hireling, little does he care, 

So leaves the wolf to scatter and to tear. 

I the Good Shepherd am : By many a sign ^-^ 

I know My sheep, and I am known of mine ; 

Ev'n as the Father knoweth Me, and I ^5 

The Father know ,* and for My sheep I die. 

And other sheep I have not of this fold ; '^ 

These I must bring and to My likeness mould, 

That one flock and one Shepherd there may be. 

Therefore it is M}^ Father loveth Me, '7 

Because of My free will My life I give. 

To be resumed, that they with Me may live. 

* Although the old reading is retained in the Revised Version, there is no doubt but 
this is the true rendering, as it makes the sense clear and preserves the parallel, which 
the other obscures or destroys. 



I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE. 



191 



The power to take on My permission stands ; {°^ 

My life's not wrenched from weak unwilling' hands :'^ 
1 have the power- — men's malice all in vain — 
To lay it doAvn and take it up again. 

During the Feast of Dedication,'^ held ^"^ 

In winter at Jerusalem, compelled, 
B}' stress of wet or cold, somewhere to go 
For shelter, Jesus sought the Portico ^3 

Of Solomon. As He was walking there, ^'^ 

The Jews, His footsteps watching everywhere. 
Surrounded Him and said : " How long dost Thou 
Intend to make us doubt ? Say plainly now. 
If Thou be the Messiah ? " He said ; " Why -3 

Repeat vain words ? My works they testify 
Of Me wrought in My Father's name. But ye =^ 

Cling to 3^our stubborn incredulity, 
Because ye are not of My sheep ; for they, ^7 

Hearing My voice. Me follow and obe}^ 
I give them life eternal. Firm thev stand : ^^ 

No man shall hurt or pluck them from My hand. 

* This festival was instituted to commemorate the purging of the Temp\e, and the 
rebuilding of the altar, after Judas Maccabeus had driven out the Syrians, B. C. 164. It 
lasted eight days. To observe it, it was not obligatory to go up to Jerusalem. It 
occurred near the end of December, some weeks after the autumnal Feast of Tab- 
ernacles. It is not probable that Christ had returned to Galilee during the interval. 



ig2 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

My Father, who them gave Me, greater is ^"^^q 

Than all, and none can pluck them out ol His 
Sure hand, which is the hand too of the Son — 
I and My Father are in all things one." 3° 

The Jews again took stones up Him to stone. 31 

Jesus said, " Many good Avorks have I shown 32 
You from My Father. Now for which of those 
Works do ye stone Me? " They reply oppose : 33 
" 'T is not for a good work, but blasphemy — 
That man, Thou makest Thyself God." Said He : 34 
" Is it not written in your law of some 
To whom the word of God of old had come, 
' I said ye 're gods ? ' If then the law thus spake, 
Styling them gods, and naught can blot or shake 
The pure authority of scripture speech. 
Wherefore charge ye with blasphemy, and breach 
Oi law, Him Avhom the Father sanctified. 
And sent into the world awhile to bide, 
For calling Him His Son ? If I, indeed, 
Do not My Father's works then are ye freed — 
Believe Me not. But if I do, believe, 
If not My words, My works which can't deceive ; 
That ye may know the Father is in Me 
And I in Him in glorious unity." 



35 



37 



^^The Truth shall make yozi free." 

Awake, my soul, from guilty slumber ! 

Arise, thy warfare now begin ! 
Shake off whatever doth encumber, 

And break the fetters of thy sin ! 

And break the fetters of thy sin ! 

Sweet Liberty ! divine in beauty, 

Dear radiant Daughter of the Skies ! 
Whose other names are Love and Duty, 
Restore Earth's long lost Paradise ! 
Restore Earth's long lost Paradise ! 
13 



WITHDRAWAL BEYOND THE JORDAN. 193 

Him therefore to arrest they tried anew ; ]^^^^ 

But He escaped them ; and again withdrew ^o 

Beyond the Jordan where John first baptized. 
Many resorted to Him : They (advised 42 

That all things John, who wrought no miracle, 
Had said of Him as greater, were said well) 
Spectators of the works that He achieved — 
Hearing the words He spake — on Him believed. 



194 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



XVII. 

I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 

John xi. 1-46. 

WHEN Lazarus of Bethany was not well, ^^^^ 

His anxious sisters sent, the Lord to tell 3 

How that His friend was sick. And, when He heard, ^ 
He spake a comforting and hopeful word : 
'' The issue of this sickness is not death — 
Departure of th' unreturning breath — 
But for God's glory meant, that so thereby 
God may His Son declare and glorify." 
' T was not because He did not love them well, s 

That He continued in that place to dwell ^ 

Yet two days longer, but for reasons wise — 
Then said to His disciples : " Let us rise, 7 

And go again into Judea." Filled s 

With deep concern, that so their Lord had willed. 
They said : '' Master ! the Jews but very late 
Would Thee have stoned, and still they lie in wait. 
And go'st thou thither that they Thee may slay ? " 



THE DEATH OF LAZARUS. 195 

He said : '' Are there not twelve hours in the day ? 
Who in the light of day and duty walks, ^^^^ 

Walks sure : because he sees the sun, he balks 
The murderous malice that in darkness hides — 
Men stumble when no light within them guides." "-"^ 
Then added : " Our friend Lazarus doth sleep ; " 

I go to wake him from his slumber deep.'* 
" Lord ! if he sleep he will recover." Said ^^ 

The Lord then plainly : '' Lazarus is dead. '-^ 

On your account I'm glad I was not there. 
That so ye may believe : we '11 thence repair." 
Said Thomas to the rest with a deep sigh : 's 

" Let us all go that with Him we may die." 

When Jesus now to Bethany had come, ^^ 

Four days had Lazarus been in the tomb. ^7 

Jews from Jerusalem, two miles away, ^^ 

Visits of sympathy had come to pay, '9 
With others, gathered in large numbers there, 
In funeral rites their mournful part to bear. 

One having run the joyful news to broach *** 

To mourning Martha of the Lord's approach, 
She flew to meet Him. Mary sat at home, 
Unconscious of the fact that He had come. 



iq6 the light of the world. 

Martha exclaimed, as she to Him drew near . ^f^^ 
" My brother had not died hadst Thou been here. 
And even now, I know, whate'er it be, ^^ 

That Thou shall ask of God, He '11 give it Thee." 
'^ Thy brother, be thou sure, shall rise again." ^s 

*' Yea," Martha said, " I know, as we maintain, ^4 

That he will in the resurrection rise 
At the Last Day ; but far that comfort lies ; 
While near and now 's the anguish of the knife." 

'' I a7n the Resurrection and the Life, ^5 

The present Conqueror of hell and death — 

I bring back life and the surrendered breath. 

He that believes on Me I hold him fast, ^^ 

And though he die, his life shall death outlast. 

Of all that live, whoso believes on Me 

Shall never die, but live eternally. 

Believest thou all this?" She said : '' Yea, Lord ! ^7 

I do believe and have believed Thy word, 

And that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God." 

Having said this, she hurriedly retrod ^^ 

The way back to the house, in Mary's ear 
To whisper secretly : '' The Master 's here, 
And calls for thee." She instantly withdrew, ^9 



I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 197 

And went to Him outside the village, threw J?^^ 

Herself down at His feet, and weeping cried : 32 

" Hadst thou been here my brother had not died." 

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews 33 

Weeping (who followed her, when at the news 
She stole away in silence, fearing they, 
Unfriendly to her Lord, might Him betray) 
He groaned in spirit, and asked shudderingly, 
"■ Where have ye laid him ?" They said : " Come and 
see !" 34 

And Jesus wept. As silent tear-drops rolled 35 

Down His wan cheeks, the Jews remarked, " Behold ! 3^ 
How much He loved him." But some reasoned, "Why 
Did He, who gave blind sight, let this man die ?" 37 
Groaning again came Jesus to the grave, 38 

Which hollowed out the hill-side formed a cave 
Closed with a stone. " Remove the stone !" He said. 39 
But Martha interposed : " Lord ! four days dead 
He by this time must smell." " Did I not say, ^° 

Believing, thou shouldst witness a display 
Of the great power of God ?" They it remove. ^^ 
Jesus said, lifting up His eyes above, 
" Father, I thank Thee that Thou heardest Me ! 



198 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Always My filial prayers ascend to Thee l^^° 

I never ask but I at once receive ; 
I said it only that men might believe." 
After these words with a loud voice He said : 43 

Lazarus, come forth !" At once, he who was dead ^^ 
Came forth, his hands and feet Avith fillets bound, 
And all about his face a napkin wound. 
Then Jesus said : " Unbind and let him go !" 

Many believed. Some let the elders know. 46 



Note. — Some explanation of the terms used in the following Verses seems proper. 
Psyche (Greek) occurs over a hundred times in the New Testament. In about half 
the cases it is rendered life^ and in the other half soul ,- v/hile the adjective formed 
from il^psycJiikos^ occurs six times, in four of which it is rendered fiaiurai. Pneu7nay 
with its derivatives, occurs more than four hundred times, and is rendered uniformly 
spirit, except in those cases where Holy Ghost is used instead of Holy Spirit. Tricho- 
tomists are those who hold to a threefold division of the nature of man, in accordance 
with I Th. V. 23, which speaks of spirit (pneuma), so7il (psyche) and body (soma) as 
constituting the whole person to be preserved blameless. The dichotomous view 
(which by the way is the current one and gives a distinct coloring to all the creeds) 
makes man to consist of two parts, viz. : body and soul. The pneuma or spirit, when 
it is distinguished from the soul, is regarded as the highest principle in man's nature, 
being that which distinguishes him from the brute creation, allies him to God, and 
forms the true ground of his immortality. Strictly speaking it was the pneuma or the 
spiritual part of man, rather than the intellectual, that fell — that is, suffered degrada- 
tion and dethronement, with spiritual darkness and death as the result. Regenera- 
tion is, therefore, the requickening of the dead or dormant, fallen pneuma ; and its 
reinstatement as the supreme regulative faculty in man, dominating all below. Stand- 
ing for the godlike, it is rich in all divine capabilities, and so it would be strange, if it 
were destitute of the power to clothe itself, that being one of the most necessary of 
all powers. Being in its own nature immortal, it needs an immortal body, and will 
have it, because it needs it, and when it needs it. Potentially present in the germ al- 



O GRAVE, WHERE IS THY VICTORY? 199 



O GRAVE, WHERE IS THY VICTORY? 



John 
xi. 20 



Four days had Lazarus been dead : 

When Martha heard the Lord was near, 
She flew to meet Him : " Oh," she said, 

" He had not died hadst Thou been here." 
Her eyes in tears, fast flowing, swam ; 

Her restless heart was full of strife ; 
She heard him say, unsoothed, " I am ^s 

The Resurrection and the Life." 



Though speaking in the present tense, 

The comfort of His words was hid : 
In some far-off and frigid sense, 

In the same way her fathers did. 
She held the dead would rise again 

At the Last Day ; but must she wait 
Ten thousand years, and not complain, 

In hope of meeting at that date ? 



John 
xi.24 



ready, it is the pushing and growing force of the indwelling pneuma that shapes the 
pneumatical body, and makes it its own. Entombed for the moment in mortal flesh, 
its resurrection is imminent. Like the butterfly from its rent cocoon, the embodied 
psyche-pneuma will spring forth, winged and wonderful, and ascend to the highest 
heavens. Identity always lies in the personal consciousness of the Ego. It is simply 
Myself, and not an affair of atoms at all. 



200 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

He said, ' I am,' not I shall be.* J5>hn 

' ' XI. 25 

The doctrine was divinely new — 
A most consoling certainty, 

Not apprehended by the Jew : 
The resurrection of the dead. 

He taught was not a dim event. 
Re-knitting of a broken thread. 

But near and now and imminent. 



* It often happens, that what the Scriptures leave obscure or undefined, men in their 
attempts to explain darken the more. As nobody was found equal to the task of piec- 
ing out the uncompleted lines of Virgil's Sic zjos non vobis, we distrust the competency 
of human wisdom to supply the deficiencies of divine authorship. This is applicable 
to creeds, for there is in the best and most venerated of them a human element which 
reflects simply the knowledge of the time. Advancing science, while it antiquates so 
much of these as is human, leaves the divine untouched in all its primitive freshness. 
The real conflict is not between the inspired text but its interpretation. Creeds have 
their uses, but Christ says, " Come to Me !" In that case, we have truth at first hand. 
We drink at the uncorrupted source. We are put into original relation with the Great 
Teacher Himself. Surely we can know far better by direct tasting that sugar is sweet 
than by report ; but it is a common fault of the learned and the unlearned alike, that 
they rely on the say-so of men who had no better means of knowing than themselves, 
if as good. 

Much of our ignorance is of ourselves. Our eyes are full of dust. Prejudice blinds 
us. It was so, we know, with the apostles. We are amazed at their stupidity. 
Where, we are tempted to ask, were their ears ? Their Master spoke plainly enough, 
but they did not listen. He said to Martha, "I am the Resurrection and the Life. 
Whoever believeth on Me shall never die. Believest thou this?" She did not pene- 
trate His meaning, nor try to. She had glibly expressed her belief in the resurrection 
as she understood it ; but whether the saying of the Master was in accordance with 
that old belief she did not stop to inquire. It is wonderful how contented we are in 
our ignorance. Our Lord's question is addressed, no doubt, to us as much as to 
Martha ; and we, like her, not seeing perhaps how a present resurrection, which 
seetns to be asserted, harmonizes with a resurrection which we have been taught to 
believe lies in the far future, we pass by the remarkable declaration as something 
enigmatical or too profound for us. 
Believers in the Resurrection may be conveniently divided into three classes. First. 



111. 3 



O GRAVE, WHERE IS THY VICTORY? 201 

Because Immortal Love reigns here, J"?!^" 

Present and powerful to save, 
It were unreasonable to fear .^p^- 

An interregnum in the grave : 
Th* imperishable forms of those, 

With tears committed to the ground. 
Evoked at death, triumphant rose, ^f^; 

And now the throne of God surround. 



vii. 15 



Those who hold that the self-same body will be raised up at the Last Day, meaning 
thereby all the material particles which happen to compose it at the moment of death. 
According to the poet Young, however, as set forth in his poem on " The Last Day," 
members previously lost will be supplied : 

" Now monuments prove faithful to their trust, 
And render back their long committed dust. 
Now charnels rattle ; scattered limbs and all 
The various bones, obsequious to the call, 
Self-moved advance ; the neck perhaps to meet 
The distant head, the distant legs the feet : 
Dreadful to view, see through the dusky sky 
Fragments of bodies in confusion fly, 
To distant regions journeying, there to claim 
Deserted members and complete the frame." 

Second. Those who entertain the view thus expressed in the Epitaph ascribed to 

Milton : 

" These Ashes, which do here remain, 
A vital tincture still retain ; 
A seminal form within the deeps 
Of this little chaos sleeps ; * * * 
This plant thus calcined into dust 
In its Ashes rest it must. 
Until sweet Psyche shall inspire 
A softening and prolific fire. 
And in her fostering arms enfold 
This heav}- and this earthly mould." 



49 



Phil, 
iii. 21 



202 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

For form is different from dust, 

And 't is for form alone we care ; 
Our earthly bodies perish must, 

The soul of form no longer there. 
The old, that was in weakness sown, ^J°[^' 

Is made the pattern of the new. 
But, fashioned like the Saviour's own, 

Stands forth idealized to view. 

Third. Those who hold, that while we are justified in assuming that " a seminal 
form" exists, it is to be looked for not in the ashes of the urn nor the dust of the 
grave, but in the depths of the immortal spirit itself, forming an essential part of it, 
being, in fact, the life within the life, possessing genetic aptitudes, whereby, under a 
divine quickening, a spiritual or pneumatical body emerges. This— constituting what 
is called the resurrection from the dead— differs from Christ's resurrection chiefly in 
this particular, that in His case, there was first a revivification of the natural body of 
flesh and blood, without its seeing corruption ; and a spiritualizing or glorification 
of it afterwards, before His ascension. The advocates of this view conceive 
that it alone suits the analogy pointed at by Paul in regard to the buried 
seed— the likeness being properly between 'the living seed and the living man, 
not the dead body. " Dead things," as Locke observes, " are not sown ; seeds are 
sown being alive." It is the living acorn that contains the oak ; the dead acorn, like 
the dead body, is empty and contains nothing. It is the psyche, the tree's life, resi- 
dent in the acorn, to which it owes all its glorious possibilities. It is this, which mak- 
ing use of its environments, builds up this lordliest of vegetable forms. Strictly 
speaking, life springs only from life, never from death. The seed seems to die, but 
does not. It descends to ascend. It clothes itself ; it puts on beauty and glory ; 
multiplies itself an hundred fold, and is thus made fit to minister to the necessities of 
man ; to nourish and build up the brain— and so become ancillary to thought and 
love and worship. 

Compared with the magnificent potentialities of the human germ those of the seed 
and acorn are poor and weak. Here too, it is the indwelling psyche, infinitely enriched 
however by special endowments, which in its marvelous workings under God, crowds 
into the period of a few brief months the accomplishments of mighty milleniums ; re- 
peating, so to speak, the miracles of creation from the beginning ; passing up step by 
step from the lowest to the highest ; through numerous imitative metamorphoses, cul- 
minating in the perfected form of the child born into the world. From earliest times 



O GRAVE, WHERE IS THY VICTORY? 203 

That which is natural is first : ^v.^^d 

The body-builder, Psyche, moulds, 
Till on the raptured sight there burst 

The hidden forms the germ enfolds. 
It makes each organ play a part, 

Giving what suits the body here — 
Were there no blood there were no heart — 

It fits the earthly to its sphere. 

until now, much use has been made, in the way of illustration, of the conversion of 
the caterpillar into the butterfly, but the mighty transformations which have already 
taken place at the time of birth, leaves this poor example a thousand leagues behind. 
But change and ascent do not stop at birth. The infant ripens into a Newton. When 
man is at his best and highest, death comes. Believers of this third class regard it as 
incredible, that at this supreme point there should be any pause or backward step in 
the march of development. They hold that death rightly viewed, so far from being 
catastrophic and final, is grandly climacteric ; is not a plunge downwards but a step 
upwards ; a mystic transition and birth into a higher life ; that it is not more in ac- 
cordance with Christian hope, than it is with reason, that new forces should now 
come into play and a new body be formed to take the place of the old one ; that at 
once, without any yawning interval, under a divine and gracious quickening, this 
corruptible should put on incorruption, and this mortal should put on immortality, and 
that death should be swaljowed up of life. 

All this is exactly in atcordance with the assurance of Paul, who said he knew that 
when the earthly house of this tabernacle was dissolved he had a building of God, a 
house not made with hands eternal in the heavens ; justifying his exultant expectation 
that, admitted to the vision of Jesus in His glorified body and seeing Him as He is, he 
should be like Him ; that, having borne the image of the earthy, he should bear 
henceforth the image of the heavenly ; and be prepared to praise Him, from the first, 
for a finished and complete redemption, including that of his body — having attained 
to the resurrection from the dead which had been the object of so much struggle and 
endeavor during his natural life upon the earth. As the apostle points out, that is not 
first which is spiritual (pneumatical) but that which is natural (pyschical) ; afterwards 
that which is spiritual (pneumatical). As the psyche begets and raises up the pysch- 
ical or natural body, by a like formative energy, it is thought, the pneuma begets 
and raises up the pneumatical or spiritual body, resemblant but different. 

In further confirmation of this view, they cite the above declaration of our Lord to 



204 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Spirits, when severed from decay, l^""^^ 

Need other organs. How shall then 
They be re-wedded to their clay. 

Without becoming mortal men ? 
Can Psyche build and Pneuma not ? 

Pneuma, the nobler of the two, 
A glorious body, without blot, 

Christ-like, angelical, and new, 

Martha: " I am the Resurrection and the Life", made purposely, it would seem, to 
correct an erroneous impression which Martha entertained, in accordance with the 
prevalent Jewish belief, that the resurrection was a remote event, too remote to be 
available for present comfort under bereavement. Prior to Christ's coming, the few 
brief hints of the Inspired Scriptures on the subject of the Resurrection, had been 
formulated by the Rabbins into a creed. As Christ came to bring life and immortality 
to life, it would be a disparagement of His mission to suppose that all His teachings, 
in regard to the what and the how and the when of the Resurrection, had been antici- 
pated by these men, leaving Him nothing to reveal ; and so, if in His utterance on this 
occasion there should be found something new and different from the accepted Phari- 
saic doctrine, it would be no more than what might be expected. Christ's teachings 
and the Pharisees' run, we know, counter to each other. They materialized ; He 
spiritualized. They externalized the Kingdom of God and were looking forward to 
it. He spoke of it, as both coming and having come, i' It cometh not," He said, 
"with observation, but is within you." He emphasizes the «i7w. All is now. lam 
the Resurrection and the Life no7u : the Judgment is fioiv. The hour cometh, and now 
is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. 
He that believeth on the Son z's not judged. He that believeth not z's judged already. 
Everj'' day, so to speak, is therefore Doomsday ; but the day of death is, in a special 
sense, to every individual, the Last Day, and the Coming of the Lord in the clouds of 
heaven, and the Day of Judgment. One hundred thousand souls are ushered into the 
presence of the Supreme Judge every twenty-four hours ; four thousand every hour, 
night and daj', sufficient, one might think, to warrant a continued session. Thus one 
day is hardly more solemn than another. All days are solemn. ''Every meanest 
moment rests on eternity." 

It is admitted, that the language employed in describing the Last Judgment and 
the End of the Word is bold and full of material imagery ; but hardly more so than 
that applied to the destruction of Jerusalem. All Christ's teachings are full of simili- 



O GRAVE, WHERE IS THY VICTORY? 20S 

Shall rear— a house not made with hands, %?°f' 

A God-devised and mystic dome, 
Eternal in the heavenly lands. 

To be the spirit's final home. 
The seed is quickened when it dies, l^^^-^ 

Puts on the new, sloughs off the old : 37 

The slumbering Pneuma wakes, likewise, ^^ 

Its mighty marvels to unfold. 

tudes. He taught in parables and prophesied in symbols. The apocalypse of the 
future is given in inspired tableaux— scenic representations, types and adumbrations 
of awful realities, true in substance if not in form. 

It is unfortunate that this view— not this view either but something like it— is made 
repugnant to many minds by its accidental association with Gnostic and other heresies. 
It is certainly free from some of the difficulties which attach to both the other two, 
and has many things to recommend it. In regard to the first, although apparently 
favored by the Creeds, it is safe to say that it is based on false notions of identity, and 
is sanctioned by neither reason nor Scripture. Dust is not identity. Had Augustine— 
who held that all the matter which ever entered into the organism however dispersed 
here, would be made complete in quantity and quality in the resurrection, even to the 
hairs cut off and the paring of the nails— known as much of Physiology as every- 
tyro now knows, he must have seen how untenable was such a view. For what are 
the facts of the case ? It is certain that our bodies are never two hours together wholly 
the same. The body of to-day is not the body of yesterday. "We die daily." Let 
Augustine's conjecture be judged of by the light of the following extract, taken from 
Dalton's work on Human Physiology : " It has been ascertained by careful weighing 
that rather more than seven pounds are absorbed and discharged daily by the healthy 
human subject ; and for a man having the average weight of 140 pounds, a quantity of 
material equal to the weight of the whole body is thus passed through the system in 
twenty days "—tantamount to more than a ton in a year. Augustine died at 75. 
Accepting his view as correct, the size and weight of his own resurrection body would 
need to be enormous. Thomas Aquinas held the more moderate view, that only the 
particles which entered into the composition of the body at death would be raised ; 
but we know, that a sharp sickness— aided perhaps by medicine and a copious blood- 
letting just before death— can reduce the weight of the body several pounds ; and it 
would devolve on the Angelical Doctor to give some good reason why the particles 
that remain should be more sacred and worthy of being raised than those taken away. 
Tertulian absurdly enough supposed, that the teeth were purposely made indestructi- 



2o6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

To be reborn, the Pneuma must ^°^^ 

Be quickened by the Spirit's breath ; ^ 

And 't is the Christian's settled trust, 

The Lord of hfe is Lord of death : f^^s 

That when he dies, the holy force 

Works normally to beauteous ends, 
In orderly and healthy course. 

And always to perfection tends. 

ble, that they might serve as the nucleus of the new body at the resurrection. A 
Jewish tradition, on the other hand, assigned this honor to a part of the os coccygis. 

It is presumed that the insuperable difficulties attendant upon this doctrine of literal 
identity, led to the adoption of the second view, advocated by Drew^ in his able 
treatise, viz., that there is an indestructible germ somewhere in our present body, 
which is to be developed in the future. This — which is, if we mistake not, the belief 
now most common — agrees, as we have seen, with the third view in assuming the ex- 
istence of a resident germinal principle by means of which the new spiritual body or 
organism is to be evolved, but differs in supposing that this descends with the dead 
tody, and lies perdue in the grave until the end of the world, when it is first quick- 
ened. If the natural body is to be succeeded by a spiritual body, it would be in ac- 
cordance with all analogy that provision should have been made in the original 
constitution of our nature for the metamorphosis, and so it can hardly be doubted 
that the genetic or active cause of such transformation has a lodgment somewhere in 
the human economy ; and the question arises in that case, which is most likely to be 
its seat, the dead body or the living spirit. Could we find good scriptural grounds for 
believing that it goes with the spirit, then we should have no difficulty in understand- 
ing how the embodiment which takes place should be immediate, and how " the 
just" would have no need to wait to be "made perfect." 

The difficulty of harmonizing this view with various texts of Scripture may not, 
perhaps, be so great as it seems. We do not think it the least of its recommendations, 
that it does away with the inferential necessity of an intermediate state, with its in- 
explicable anomalies, contradictions, and twilight underground associations — its Par-* 
adise being, as many conceive it, little better than a weird betweenity, a kind of half 
prison, a place of exile and long waiting. What the state of the soul is without the 
body, Isaac Taylor, in his Physical Theory of Another Life, tries to imagine and tell 
us ; and we confess, the conclusions which he reaches are by no means exhilarating. 
He argues, that as mind is dependent upon corporiety, its powers for the time are in a 
state of suspension. The intermediate period, being the chrysalis period of the soul, is, 



O GRAVE, WHERE IS THY VICTORY? 207 

To raise me up at my last day, ^^^3"^ 

Were more than to resuscitate ^° 

This mortal tenement of clay, 

Making me live to die more late : 
Give me, O Christ ! a nature new ; 

Mix Thy sweet life with mine. True Bread ! 32 
That so I may attain unto hl'^T" 

The resurrection from the dead. " 

he infers, marked by the destitution of all the instruments of active life, corporeal and 
mental. This state of inaction is probably, he thinks, also. a state of subterranean se- 
clusion, involving perhaps an unconsciousness of the passage of time. 

This picture, it must be conceded, is a far less cheering one than that given in the 
Westminster Confession, which distinctly affirms, that " the souls of the righteous, 
immediately after death, being made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest 
heaven," etc. Now, as nothing can be higher than the " highest," there is clearly no 
room left for anything "intermediate;" but not content with this implied denial of 
an intermediate state, the Confession goes on to say expressly, " Besides these two 
places [/. ^., heaven and hell] the Scripture acknowledgeth none." It is silent as to 
the disembodied soul's mode of existence, but seems to take it for granted, that it has 
organs perfectly adapted to its exalted condition. Paul speaks of being absent from 
the body, but present with the Lord ; which might be thought to imply, that he be- 
lieved in the possibility of the existence of the soul apart from the body ; but, on the 
other hand, one would be led to think, from the importance which he attached every- 
where to the resurrection, that he regarded corporiety— spiritual corporiety — in a 
sense necessarj-. 

Profoundly impressed with the greatness of the mj'Stery which shrouds the subject, 
the writer feels that no attitude towards it becomes him but one of reverent inquiry : 
therefore he desires it to be understood, that the view, set forth in the accompanying 
Verses, is propounded rather than asserted. He thinks it echoes the hope if not the 
belief of multitudes. If true and justified by Scripture, it cannot be deemed other- 
wise than desirable that it should be divorced from the error or the folly with which 
it may happen to be associated. For who would not like to be scripturally certified, 
that death was no more than the putting off of one garment and the putting on of an- 
other? That as soon as the soul is unclothed, it is clothed upon with the vestments of 
eternity? It is easy to start objections, and raise difficulties against any view. On a 
subject involved in so much uncertainty, the writer considers it is lawful to differ. 



2o8 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

In a swift moment Thou didst turn 

The water into living wine— ^*?^J 

The twinkling of an eye, I learn, lv.°'2 

Suffices for the Power Divine : 
Rather than souls leave naked, Thou %^°i'- 

Wouldst clothe them by immediate act ; 
But there's no need, if law doth now 

Potentiality make fact. 

In captive thrall should death retain 

Part of ourselves, the spirit's mate, 
We should in heaven with yearning pain ^°^^^-^ 

Redemption of our body wait ; 
And ask, What means this long divorce 

Our exiled half still 'neath the sod ? 
And spur the ages in their course, 

To consummate us sons of God. ^^ 

Dear risen Lord ! does Paul still groan. 

Not clothed upon as he had hoped ? 
To all but to Thyself alone 

Are the grave's prison-doors unoped ? 
Dost Thou in heaven a body wear ? 

And dost Thou make Thy saints to wait, 
Leaving their souls unclothed and bare, 

In nameless embryonic state? 



O GRAVE, WHERE IS THY VICTORY? OQQ 

What are those many mansions,"^ Thou J'/^^"^ 

Didst say Thou wentest to prepare ? 
Dwell not they all within them now, 

Each housed in his own palace fair ? 
It cannot be they suffer lack — 

When Love to them all things has given — ^'?"'; 
And are now sighing to come back 

To supplement defect in heaven. 

* The writer is aware, that such an interpretation, of what Stier calls, "this super- 
abundant mysterious declaration " — /. f., " In my Father's house are many mansions,'' 
etc.— would be novel ; but, he is not sure, but that it is as defensible as any that has 
been hitherto suggested. The objection, that the " many mansions " are spoken of as 
already existing, would apply equally to Paul's affirmation : "We have a house [re- 
ferring clearly, it would seem from the connection, to the spiritual body] not made 
with hands eternal in the heavens." Jesus speaks in the next verse : " I go to prepare 
a place for you" ; and yet the place is elsewhere spoken of (Matt. xxv. 34) as "pre- 
pared for you from the foundation of the world." So we read of " The Lamb slam 
from the foundation of the world." What is fi.xed in the divine purpose is considered 
as already existing. In regard to the many mansions, there is no need, that we should 
figure them as dwelling-places, empty and expectant, actually existing in heaven ^ 
but as potential habitations, preparing and to be prepared for an eternal residence. 
Admitting, that the spiritual bodies of the redeemed are meant thereby it is not diffi- 
cult to understand, how that His going before, would have reference to His sending 
the Holy Ghost with his quickening, upbuilding and shaping influences, guiding and 
directing the pneuma at last in the way heretofore indicated, so as to give to every 
sanctified personality at or after death his "own body " ; whence it Avould come to 
pass that the number of mansions would correspond to the number of the saved r and 
each house with its inhabitant would be distinctive and peculiar — differing, it may be, 
as stars differ from one another in glory. The coming again, promised in the same 
connection, nearly all agree, refers to Christ's coming at death. The Swedenborgian 
figment, that by many mansions are meant stellar worlds to which souls are dis- 
tributed, finds no basis in Scripture, nor, we may add, in common sense ; and to mini- 
mize the meaning to the dimensions of so poor a thought, as that there is room (space) 
enough in heaven for all believers, is we think, to do injustice both to the speaker and 
the occasion. 

14 



2IO THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



XVIII. 

RETIRES BEYOND THE JORDAN. 

John xi. 47-54 ; Luke xiii. 22 — xv. 31 ; xviii. 1-14. 

CHIEF priests and elders hastened to convoke x?"^ 
The Sanhedrim ; and, full of cunning, spoke 
(Under a show of patriotic zeal, 
And pure affection for the public weal, 
Hiding the venom of their private hate) 
Of great and imminent danger to the State. 
" What are we doing ? Nothing that's of use, 
While He goes on the people to seduce 
By man}^ miracles and wonders great 
And a portentous one of recent date. 
If we let Him alone, ere long all men 48 

Will think He is the Christ ; the Romans then 
AVill come and take away from us, we fear, 
Our place and nation." Caiaphas, that year 49 

Being the high priest, said : " Ye nothing know, 
Else ye would see, to save from overthrow 
The fabric of the Jewish Church and State, 



RETIRES BEYOND THE JORDAN. 21I 

The present is no time to hesitate : J^^_!^ 

And how, in any case, that this one man 50 

Should for the people die, is better than 

That the whole nation perish." Naught he cared, 

For truth and innocence howe'er declared — 

But herein spake unconscious prophesy, 51 

That Jesus for the nation then should die ; 

Nor for that nation only, but likewise, 52 

For all the nations under the whole skies ; 

And that He should assemble from abroad 

Into one Church the scattered sons of God. 

They from that day concerted how they might 53 
Put Him to death. To be from public sight 
Removed, away from danger of arrest, 
He left Jerusalem, and judged it best 
To go to a small town called Ephraim — 54 

And His disciples tarried there with Him. 



Mark 

X. I 



Quitting at length the place of His retreat 
Again He crossed the Jordan, and with feet 
That felt fatigue, but felt it to contemn, 
Teaching and journeying towards Jerusalem, 
He passed through towns and villages that lay 
In Herod iVntipas' domain. One day, 31 



Luke 
xiii.22 



212 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Came certain of the Pharisees to Him, ^ ^^^^ 

Saying, with curHng hp and visage grim : 
'' Get Thee away, at once, for Herod means 
To kill Thee." Naught from Him their, malice 
screens — 32 

So He, knowing informers them to be, 
Said : *' Go, and tell that fox, that I cast out 
Demons, and cures perform along My route 
To-day, likewise to-morrow : the third day 33. 

My course completed, I will go away. 
I ne'ertheless till then shall walk about, 
Because a prophet cannot perish out 
Of doomed Jerusalem. Jerusalem ! 34 

That kill'st the prophets, and that stonest them 
Who 're sent to thee, how oft I, safe from harms, 
Thy children would have gathered in My arms. 
E'en as the hen, when hawks are hovering. 
Gathers her brood beneath her shelt'ring wing. 
But ye would not — blind, fierce, and obstinate — 
Now is your house left waste and desolate. 3s 

As at a ruler's house He sat at meat, '^'^'' "■ 

Guests were ambitious of the highest seat. '^ 

Observing which, this Parable He spake : 



DINES WITH A CHIEF PHARISEE. 21^ 

^' When to a wedding- thou art bidden, take ^"''^ 

" ' XIV. 8 

Not vainly the chief seat at table, lest 

There enter a more honorable guest, 

And the host come to thee, and say aloud : 9 

' Yield this man room ! ' And thou, who wert so 

proud. 
Be forced with shame to take the lowest place. 
But when invited, to avoid disgrace, ^° 

Go to the lowest seat, that in the end 
The host may tell thee, ' Go up higher, friend ! ' 
Then thou'lt have honor in the sight of all — 
For self descends to rise, and climbs to fall." " 

He said, likewise, to him Avho was His host : ^^ 

" When thou a dinner or a supper dost 
Provide, ask not thy friends, nor brothers, nor 
Thy kinsmen, nor thy wealthy neighbors, for 
These haply may thee ask in turn, and thence 
Thou may'st receive a selfish recompense. 
But ask the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, ^3 
And thou a heavenl}^ recompense shalt find." ^4 

One of the guests, this hearing, warmly said : ^5 
" How blessed in God's Kingdom to eat bread !" 
Then Jesus said to him : '' A certain man -^^ 



214 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Made a great supper, on a scale and plan ^^^z. 

Royal and rich, inviting many. So ^t 

At supper time, he sent to let them know 
All things were ready. But, with one consent, ^^ 

They all, preoccupied, excuses sent. 
One said : ' I've bought a field which I must see- 
Have me excused.' Another, for that he ^9 
Had bought five yoke of oxen, and must go 
To prove them, prayed to be excused also. 
A third said : ' I just married am — therefore ^°- 
I cannot come.' These several answers bore -^ 
The servant to his waiting Master, who. 
Incensed, said to his servants : ' Go into 
The city's streets and lanes, make search and find, 
And bring in here the poor, maimed, lame and blind.' 
The servants said : ' According to thy will, " 
This has been done, and there 's room vacant still. ' 
Once more the Master said : ' Go out again, ==3 
Into the highways and the hedges, and constrain 
Enough my house to fill, and save from waste : 
For not one bidden shall my supper taste.' " ^4 

Now a great multitude, from far and near, ^^'- ^ 

Of publicans and sinners came to hear : 
Drawn far more strongly, than with cords and hooks,. 



PARABLE OF THE LOST SHEEP. 



215 



By the attraction of His loving looks, !^"^ 

And winning sweetness of His friendly speech. 
And condescension that to them could reach. 
Treated as beings of inferior birth, 
Vile outcasts and offscourings of the earth, 
When now One rose to tell them, though defiled, 
Their Father God still loves His wand'ring child. 
What wonder, that the strange and welcpme news 
Should through their hearts an unknown joy diffuse : 
When at this friendliness some took offense, ^ 

He spake these Parables in His defense : 3 

" What man, the owner of a hundred sheep, + 

If one, through failure with the flock to keep. 
Be lost, doth not the others leave behind 
There in the wold, and go the lost to find ? 
And, having found it, doth not lay it there s 

On his glad shoulders, and it homeward bear. 
And say to friends and neighbors gathered round : ^ 
' Rejoice with me for I the lost have found ' ? 
So a diviner joy from Heaven doth flow 7 

Out towards one sinner that repents below. 
Than ninety-nine self-righteous persons, who 
Need no repentance or suppose they do." 



2i6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

" What woman with ten drachmas, losing one, ]^^^l 
Lights not a lamp to aid th' excluded sun ; 
Sweeps not the house, and searches not all round, 
Until she find it ? And, Avhen it is found, 9 

Doth not her neighbors summon, and accost : 
' Rejoice Avith me, I've found the piece T lost ' ? 

'' A father had two sons. The younger said, " 

' Father ! of thy estate be my share paid.' " 

And he allotted to each son his share. 
The younger son began then to prepare ^3 

For his departure — gathered all and sold — 
Turning the fixed into convenient gold. 
And journeyed to a country far away. 
And there in endless riot night and day. 
Wasted his substance. And, when all was spent, ^^ 
A famine there arose of wide extent ; 
And he began to be in want. So deep ^s 

His need, he lent himself the swine to keep : 
But no man gave him aught, till he was led ^^ 

To crave the husks on which the hogs were fed. 
Come to himself, the thought sprang into view, ^7 
' HoAv many hirelings has my father, who 
Have more bread than suffices, while I here 
Perish with hunger, ending mad career. 



PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON. 217 

I will arise and to my father go, ^^^| 

And I will say unto him : Father ! lo, 

I 've sinned, have greatly sinned, 'gainst Heaven and 

thee, 
And therefore am not worthy more to be ^9 

Counted a son. Make me, I am content. 
One of thy hirelings.' He arose and went. ^o 

Him when the father afar oflF descried, 
Moved Avith compassion, he to meet him hied. 
And fell upon his neck, and kissed him much, 
The love and longing in his heart were such. 

" With tears fast flowing, pierced with new distress. 
He should have ever grieved such tenderness, 
The son said, ' Father ! I have sinned 'gamst light. 
Before the face of Heaven and in thy sight. 
And am not worthy to be called thy son.' 

" But said the father to the servants, ' Run, ^^ 

Bring hither the best robe — rags are unmeet — 
A ring put on his hand, shoes on his feet. 
And bring the fatted calf and quickly slay, 23 

And let us feast, and merry be to-day. 
For this my son was dead (let joy abound) ^4 

And lives again: was lost, and, lo, is found.' 

" The elder son was absent in the field, " ^s 

So what had happened was from him concealed. 



2l8 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Returning home, he heard, as he drew nigh, ^^;}'^ 

Music and dancing ; and, till he knew why, 

He would not enter, but remained without. 

Asking a servant what 't was all about, ^^ 

The servant said to him : ' Thy brother 's come — ^7 

Thy father gives this festive welcome home.. 

Has killed the fatted calf, made mirth abound. 

Because he has received him safe and sound.' 

When asked to enter, he refused with heat : ^^ 

Therefore the father came out to entreat. 

" He said: ' Lo, I thee many years have served, ^9 
And have from none of thy commandments swerved : 
And yet thou never gavest me a kid. 
My friends to pleasure ; but no sooner did 3° 

This spendthrift son return, who has ere now 
Squandered on prostitutes thy means, than thou 
Killedst for him the fatted calf.' ' Na}', son,' 31 

The father said, ^ grieve not at what is done. 
Thou'rt ever with me, and all mine is thine. 
Be not so foolish then as to repine. 
'T was meet, that we a festive joy should spread, 32 
For this, thy brother, was aforetime dead. 
And is alive again — lost in the wold, 
Is found at last and brought into the fold.' " 



THE LOST FOUND. 



219 



THE LOST FOUND. 

I sing the Shepherd of the sheep : 
Who, for the love He bore the fold, 

Did wade through sorrows dark and deep. 
And freely give His life of old. 

I sing the love, so strange, so sweet. 
That sought the lost until it found — 

With aching heart, and bleeding feet. 
And flowing tears that wet the ground.- 

I sing the goodness of our God, 
The patient pity and the grace. 

That left no dreadful path untrod 
To seek and save the human race. 

Great Shepherd of the nations ! Thou, 
Bishop of souls, go forth to find 

Thy scattered flock ! O gather now 
The straying millions of mankind ! 



220 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

He said to His disciples : '' Hear ye too : '^^^^ 

A certain rich man had a steward, who, 
Accused of wasting his estate, was thrust - 

Out of his stewardship for breach of trust. . 
As sad he mused, a shrewd thought upward flamed : 3 
' I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed 
But there 's a way by which, when here I leave, ^ 
Some of my master's friends will me receive.' 

" He called to him the debtors of his lord, s 

jVnd spake to each the same sly cunning word : 
^ How much,' he asked, the first, ' is it thou ow'st ? 
^ A hundred baths of oil,' he answered. ' Dost ^ 

Thou wish 't were less ? Take back thy script, and 

now 
Write one for fifty.' ' How much owest thou ?' 7 

He asked another, who replied : ' Of wheat 
A hundred homers.' ' The amount 's too great — 
Take back thy script, and write one for four-score.' 
Clever the scheme, a thing to chuckle o'er. ^ 

His lord admired the fitness of the plan 
To win the favor of his fellow man. 
For children of this world, in their affairs, 
Are wiser than the sons of light in theirs. 



TRUE USE OF RICHES. 221 



" Not worshipped as a god, but held a tool 
To work the pleasure of the hands that rule, 
Yourselves can carry on by Mammon even 
A gainful commerce wdth the ports of heaven : 
Deceitful riches can procure you friends, 
When used as righteous means to righteous ends : 
Can gain the friendship of the powers above, 
By alms of mercy and by bribes of love. 
So use your money, that when earth ye leave, 
They into everlasting homes may you receive. 

"He that is faithful in a little (such 
The general law) is faithful too in much. 
He that unrighteous is in matters small. 
Unrighteous is in great things and in all. 
If in low monetary trusts untrue, 
Who will commit true riches unto you ? 
If in another's, ye have weakness shown. 
Who will believe you equal to your own ? 
Ye cannot faithful and unfaithful be. 
Be friends of God and serve His enemy. 

Lovers of money, when the Pharisees 
Heard Him declare these things, they, ill at ease, 
Began to jeer, and sneer at Him, and scoff. 



Luke 
XV i. — 



1+ 



222 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

He said to them : " Ye may with men pass off ^^^^ 
Yourselves for righteous, but God knows your hearts, 
And all the lustings of your inward parts. 
Self is your God, for self ye spend or hoard ; 
But what 's admired of men, of God 's abhorred. 
While ye can sit as princes, what care ye 
Your brother pines in want and misery ? 



" There was a man exceeding rich, who clad 
In purple and fine linen, daily had 
Whate'er could minister gluttonous delight : 
While at his gate there lay, a piteous sight. 
A beggar full of sores, named Lazarus, 
Desiring naught of the vast overplus 
Whereon to feed but sweepings of the floors : 
And the dogs came and licked his undressed sores. 
The beggar dying, he was borne away 
To Abraham's bosom. On another day, 
The rich man also died, and with parade 
And haughty pomp was to the tomb conveyed. 
And he, in hades, lifting up his eyes. 
Being in torments, Abraham descries 
Afar with Lazarus upon his breast. 
Free from his sores, most happy and at rest. 



19 



THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS. 223 

Himself a beggar now — from depths of grief ^^,^"^1 

He hurls a mighty cry for some relief, 24 

Across the distance, reaching Abraham's ear : 

' Have pity, father Abraham, and here 

Send Lazarus to dip his finger's tip 

In water, thus to cool my tongue and lip. 

For I'm tormented in this flame.' But he =^5 

Said, ' Son, remember choice was given thee. 

And thou didst have the things which thy heart would. 

All bodily delights and earthly good ; 

And Lazarus had his evil things below — 

But now while he 's in joy thou art in woe. 

A gulf impassable, moreo'er, is fixed 26 

Of separation us and thee betwixt.' 

The other said : ' Then, father, send I pray ==7 

Him to my father's house, that so he may 

Warn m}^ five brethren lest they here too come— ^^ 

The grave 's now silent and the dead are dumb.' 

But Abraham rephed : ' iVlready they 29 

Have Moses and the Prophets.' Said he : ' Nay, 30 

O father, but if from the dead one went 

And warned them, they, in that case, would repent.' 

' Not so. If them they hear not,' Abraham said, 31 

The}^ would not hear though one rose from the dead.' " 



224 ^^^ LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

That he might confidence to men impart xvui^^ 

To persevere in prayer, and not lose heart, 
He spake this Parable. '' There Avas," He said, ^ 

" A certain judge, of God nor man afraid, 
Venal, unjust, not caring for the right, 
To all but his own ease indifferent quite, 
A selfish sybarite devoid of shame. 
To him a widow of that city came, 3 

Saying, ' Uphold, I pray, my righteous cause, 
And vindicate the justice of the laws.' 
He would not for a while, but afterward, + 

He said within himself, ' Though I regard 
Not right, lest I be battered^^ with her prayers, 5 

I'll righteous judgment give in her affairs.' 
Hear what the unjust judge was moved to do. ^ 

And will not God redress His chosen, who t- 

Cry day and night to Him ! I tell you. Yea, ^ 

And that with speed, though there seem long delay. 
When comes the Son of Man shall He find dearth 
And scarcity of faith upon the earth ? " 

He spake this Parable to those, who thought 
They were the righteous, and all others naught : 

* The literal meaning of the original Greek is " to make black and blue under the 
eyes by blows." 



THE PHARISEE AND PUBLICAN. 225 

'' Two men up to the Temple went one day— ^^u^^io 

A Pharisee and Pubhcan — to pray. 

Standing apart the Pharisee began 

His brag : ' O God, I thank Thee I'm a man, 

Not as the rest of men, I proudly trust, 

Extortioners, adulterers, unjust, 

Or as this Pubhcan. 1, each week, lo ! 

Fast twice. I tithes of all I have bestow.' 

Meanwhile the Pubhcan with heavy sighs, '^ 

Standing afar, afraid to lift his eyes. 

Smote on his breast, and cried : ' I am undone ! 

Be merciful to me, the sinful one.' 

This man went justified, I say to you, '^ 

Down to his house the rather of the two. 

For who exalts himself shall humbled be. 

The road to honor is humility." 

Matt, xix 13-30 ; Mark x. 13-31 ; Luke xviii. 15-30. 

Then they brought babes to Him, that he might 

, Matt. 

lay xix. 13 

His dear caressing hands on them and pray : 
And the disciples censured them for it. 
And Jesus said : " The Kttle ones permit 
To come to Me, and do not them prevent— 
15 



14 



226 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Essential is the childlike element, ]^^}: 

Trustful and clinging", finding food and rest, 
Warmth and protection on the mother's breast — 
Of such God's Kingdom is. Be not beguiled ! ^^l^ 
Who enters it must enter as a child." 
Taking them in His arms He them caressed, ^^ 

And laid His loving hands on them and blessed. 

A ruler came to Him, while on His way, ^7 

And kneeling said : ^' Good Master ! tell, I pray, 
What shall I do eternal life to win ? " 
He said : ^' The good is one who has no sin ; ^^ 

Why callest thou Me good ? Dost thou Me know ? 
None 's good but God, who 's absolutely so. 
Thou knowest the Commandments ; keep each one ! "^^ 
He said, " From my youth up, I this have done : ^ 
What lack I that I may be perfected ? " 
Then Jesus looked on him with love, and said : ^^ 

*' Wouldst thou be perfect, and forever live, 
Go, sell, and to the poor thy substance give ; 
And come, take up thy cross, and follow Me, 
Mid persecution, shame and poverty. 
For My sake, thou must count all things as loss, 
Thy reputation and thy riches dross : 



THE DANGER OF RICHES. 227 

For these thou 'It forfeit, and 't were therefore wise 

To sit down first, and weigh the sacrifice. 

Like one who thinks, ere he begfins a tower, ^"^ 

' O ' XIV. 20 

Whether to finish it be in his power. 

Or like a king, ere he to battle goes, 31 

Considers well the number of his foes." 

At this he went away with heavy heart, ^^Jj 

With his possessions not content to part. 

Then Jesus His disciples thus addressed : ^3 

" How difficult it is for those possessed 
Of wealth to enter in at the strait gate ! 
So prone are men its worth to overrate — 
To trust in riches, and more highly prize 24 

The earthly good than treasures in the skies. 
'T were easier for a camel to pass through ^s 

A needle's eye, than that hard thing to do." 
They said, astonished, " Who then can be saved ? " ^^ 
'* What is not possible with men depraved, 27 

Is possible with God through offered grace." ^^^l' 

Peter began to say with foolish face : 

*' Lo ! we've forsaken all and followed Thee — 

What shall we have therefore ?" " Be sure, that ye— =» 



228 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Who Me have followed (O the grace of it !) jf^^'h 

In the regeneration,* when shall sit 

The Son of Man upon His glorious throne, 

Subduing hearts by might of Truth alone — 

Shall be My sovereign mouth, and shall declare 

My royal will, and what My judgments are. 

Your words inspired shall be the end of strife, 

The rule of faith and guiding law of life. 

Until the renovation is complete, 

And the whole world comes bowing to My feet. 

None have house, parents, brethren, children, wife ^^ 

Left for My sake, who shall not, in this life. 

Receive an hundred fold, and, in the age 

To come, eternal life — but not as wage. 

Matt. xx. i-i6. 

" For in the government of its affairs, -^-^ 

Messiah's Kingdom a resemblance bears, 
Unto a householder, who had desire 
Into his vineyard laborers to hire, 

*The regeneration of the race is the regeneration of individual souls, and this we 
believe is ever going on. The Son of Man is surely now sitting on the throne of His 
glory, being to the right hand of God exalted, and having a name above every name. 
So the Apostles (certainly ever since the day of Pentecost) have been sitting on their 
thrones, with their authority so universally acknowledged down to our time, that 
from their judgments there is no appeal. Here surely is ample fulfilment. Compared 
with this, the glory of actual thrones, crowns and sceptres is vulgar and poor. 



PARABLE OF THE HIRED LABORERS. 229 

So went out early, and agreed to pay, ^"; 

To those employed, a penny each a day. 

He, going at the end of three hours space, 3 

Saw others idle in the market place, 

And said to them : ' Into my vineyard go, ^ 

And what is right I will on you bestow.' 

Fie, at the sixth hour, and the ninth, went out, 5 

And did the same. Again he found, about ^ 

Th' eleventh hour, more standing, and said : ' Why 

Stand idle all the day ? ' They made reply : 7 

' Because no man has hired us.' He said then, 

* Go ye also into the vineyard.' When 

Night came, the owner to the steward said : ^ 

* Call laborers, and let their hire be paid. 
Be there a penny to each one disbursed. 
Beginning from the last unto the first. ^ 

When those hired first, received the penny due, '° 
They murmured and found fault, and said : ^We who " 
Have borne the heat and burden of the day, " 

Working twelve hours, receive but equal pay 
With those who've wrought but one.' 

He one addressed 
More turbulent and noisy than the rest : 
^ Friend ! I do thee no wrong, for didst thou not '3 



230 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Agree to work for that ? Then take up what f^^^- 

Is thine, and go thy way. It shall thus be. 

1 11 give the last the same as I give thee. 

May I not with my own do what I would ? ^^ 

Is thine eye evil because I am good ? ' 

Thus shall the first be last, who murmur blame ; '^ 

And the last first, because they make no claim. 

Salvation is a gift in any case ; 

Were it of debt, it would not be of grace. 

Many are called, but most the call refuse ; ^t- 

Few are the chosen, for they 're few that choose." 

Luke xvii. 7-10. 

Saw'st thou thy servant coming from the field ? 
Wouldst thou precedence at thy table yield ? 
Or say : ^ Make ready thou, and on Me wait. 
Then thou shalt eat ?' Or wouldst thou rate 
His lawful service as a favor ? No ! 
He simply did that which he ought, I trow. 
So judge yourselves improfitable, when you 
Have only done what you were bound to do. 



Luke 
xvii. 7 



JAMES AND JOHN'S AMBITION. 23 1 



XIX. 

RETURN TO JERUSALEM THROUGH JERICHO. 

Matt. xv. 17-34 ; Mark x. 32-52 ; Luke xviii. 31-43 ; xix. 1-44. 



Mark 
X. 32 



WHILE on their way up to Jerusalem, 
Jesus with steady step preceding them, 
Amazement fell on them, and they were made, 
As Him they followed, mightily afraid. 
Taking the Twelve apart. He said to them : 
" Behold, we go up to Jerusalem : 33 

And, lo, the Son of Man betrayed shall be 
Unto the Sanhedrim, that, presently. 
Shall Him consign, whom they Ve condemned to die,34 
To Gentile hands to scourge and crucify. 
But He on the third day shall rise again — 
For not the grave can longer Him detain." 

The mother of the sons of Zebedee 35 

To Jesus came, and asked, on bended knee, 

He would one favor grant. He said : " Explain ! 36 

What wouldst thou?" She replied: ''That in Thy 

Reign, ^7 



232 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

One of my sons may sit on Thy right hand, ^^ 

The other on Thy left, in high command." 

But Jesus, all forseeing, sadly said : 38 

'' Your fond request is ignorantly made — 

Ye know not what ye ask. Do ye then think 

That ye can drink the cup that I must drink ? 

And with My baptism be yourselves baptized ?" 

They said : " We can do all therein comprised." 39 

" These ye, indeed, shall do and undergo ; 

But that, ye ask, is not Mine to bestow 40 

On human grounds of personal regard — 

Essential fitness governs the award." 

And when the ten heard of it, every one 41 

Felt indignation against James and John. 

But Jesus, having called them to Him, said : 4= 

'' Ye know the Gentiles have their princely head — 
Rulers to rule and great ones to bear sway — 
Not so with you. Ye 're taught to put away, 43 

As best befits meek learners in My school, 
All winged ambitions and proud thoughts of rule. 
Who would be great, therefore, let him be small : ++ 
Who would be chief, the servant be of all. 
The Son of Man e'en came to serve, and give ^^5 

His life a ransom, that the slave might live." 



BLIND BARTIMEUS.— ZACCHEUS. 233 

As Jesus entered Jericho, along ^^^6 

With His disciples and a numerous throng 
Blind Bartimeus by the wayside sat, 
Begging. When he was told by some one, that ^i 
Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. 
Losing no time, he straight began to cry : 
" O Lord, Thou Son of David, pity me !" 
When some rebuked, and bade him silent be, ^^ 

He only cried the more : " Have pity, Lord ' 
Thou Son of David, pity me afford !" 
Jesus stood still and said : '' Call ye him here." 49 

They to the blind man said : " Be of good cheer — 
He calleth thee." His mantle thrown aside. 
He sprang up quickly and to Jesus hied, 5° 

Who said : '' What wouldst thou have Me do to 
thee ?" 51 

The blind man said : '' Rabboni, make me see. 
'' Go !" Jesus said, "thy faith hath given thee sight."5^ 
Straightway he saw, and praised the Lord of light. 



Passing through Jericho, a well known man. 
Rich, named Zaccheus, a chief publican, 
Sought to see Jesus, but this could not do, 
Because the crowd His person hid from view. 



Luke 
xix. I 



234 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

He, being of low stature, ran before, ^^ 

And climbed into a spreading sycamore 

Along the route, to see Him as He passed. 

When Jesus reached the tree. He stopped, and cast s 

An upward look, and said, as him He spied, 

'' Come down, Zaccheus, for I must abide 

Within thy hospitable doors to-da}^" 

Surprised, he, coming down without delay, ^ 

Received Him joyfully. The multitude t 

Beholding this, with grumblings Him pursued. 

Saying : " He 's gone with one that 's under ban — 

An outcast Jew, a hateful publican — 

To lodge, and eat, and thus Himself defile." 

But in Zaccheus there was wrought meanwhile ^ 
A mighty penitence. He stood and spake : 
'' I, Lord, a gift of half my goods now make 
Unto the poor. If I have, heretofore, 
Taken aught wrongfully, I will restore 
Fourfold." And Jesus said : " In truth I say, 9 

Salvation to this house has come to-day : 
For that the Son of Man, at His own cost, '^ 

Has come to seek and save that which is lost." 

Seeing they listened. He went on to tell " 



PARABLE OF THE TEN POUNDS. 



235 



Th' expectant multitude a Parable — ^J^l 

Who thought, because Jerusalem was near, 

He in His Kingdom straightway would appear. 

" A nobleman — preparing to resort ^^^ 

To the far city of th' Imperial Court, 

To take to him his kingship and return — 

That their trustworthiness he so might learn, ^^ 

Gave to ten servants all an equal sum. 

One pound to each, and said : ' Use till I come.' 

But hated by the citizens, these sent ^+ 

An embassy th' in vesture to prevent — 

Saying, ' We will not have him for our king.* 

" When he returned — in all things prospering — '5 
Having all rights of royalty obtained — 
That he might know what every one had gained, 
He called those servants he had money given. 

" Then came the first and said : ' Lord ! thanks to 
Heaven, ^^ 

Thy pound has gained ten pounds.' He said, ' Well 
done, ^7 

Good servant ! faithful found in this small one, 
Have thou a grander trust — the government 
Over ten cities.' ' Lord ! the pound me lent,' '^ 

The second said, ' has gained five pounds.' * Ev'n so, "^ 



236 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Be o'er five cities.' Said another : ' Lo ! ^"^^ 

XIX. 20 

Here is thy pound, which I with care kept laid 

Up in a napkin, for I was afraid, ^i 

Because thou art a man austere and hard, 

To rights of others paying no regard, 

Exacting that which never was thine own, 

And reaping that which thou hadst never sown.' 

*' ^ I, out of thine own mouth, will thee convict, ^^ 
Thou wicked servant. Knowing I was strict, 
Austere, exacting what was not my own, 
And reaping that which I had never sown, 
Why gav'st thou not my pound to one to use, =3 

That 1 might not thereon my interest lose ?* 
He said to his attendants standing round : =^4 

* Take ye away from him his unused pound. 

And give to him who has gained ten.' But they, ^s 
Surprise evincing, he went on to say : 

* To every one that has, and adds thereto, ""^ 
Shall more be given : whereas the slothful, who 
Has and adds naught, shall not keep that he has. 
Since found unfaithful and unfit. But as =^7 
For those my foes who would not have me reign. 
Let them be brought and in my presence slain.' " 



Xll. I 



TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. 237 

Having thus spoken, going on before, ^\^8 

He pressed on to Jerusalem, once more, 
And came to Bethany, where Lazarus dwelt, ^/"^ 

Whom He had raised to hfe. The chief priests felt 
Against the current it was vain to strive, 
While this miraculous witness was alive, 
So they designed His death. Already they 
Had taken means to Jesus seize and slay. 

Haste, careful Martha, thy Lord's couch prepare, 
For He intends this night thy house to share. 

On the next day (which was five days before 
That Passover, when should — in type once more, 
Then once for all in fact and not again — 
The spotless Lamb of God for us be slain) 
Fulfilling prophecy — all prescient 
Of what would be — He two disciples sent, ^^^ ^^ 

Saying : " Go to yon village, ye shall find 30 

A colt there tied, ne'er ridden yet, unbind 
And bring him here. Should any one inquire, 31 

' Why loose ye him ? ' say 't is by My desire, 
The Lord has need of him." They went and found 32 
As he had said ; and, with consent, unbound 33 

And brought the colt to Jesus : and this done, 34 



Luke 



238 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

They threw on him their garments, and thereon, ^^^^^ 
Not otherwise caparisoned, Him set. 
The honored beast, though all unbroken, yet 
Not needing check nor guidance, onward went. 
Knowing his rider, with proud step but bent 
Low reverent neck, while many in the road 36 

Their garments spread ; and others lopped and 
strowed ^^i^''^ 

Branches of myrtle ; fronds of palms some bore ; 
And those who followed, and who went before, 9 

Together cried : " Hosanna to the Son J^"^ 

Of David ! Blessed be th' Anointed One ! 
The King of Israel, of mighty fame, 
Approved and coming in Jehovah's name ! 
Daughter of Zion, eastward look ! behold, 
Thy King approaches, even as foretold, s 

Meek, sitting on an ass's colt ! Long live 
Messiah ! peaceful be His reign ! Now give ix!^^s 
Glory to God, glad hallelujahs sing, 
In lofty celebration of our King ! " 

The people, who were present, witness gave ][-f "^ 
They Lazarus had seen come from the grave, 
And this drew many ; many more beside '^ 



CHRIST'S LAMENT OVER JERUSALEM. 239 

From Galilee, of Jesus testified, J.?^" 

Thereby augmenting the triumphing throng, 
That sang hosannas as He passed along. 

The Pharisees, alarmed at what they saw, ^9 

Exclaim, as they in groups together draw, 
" Of what avail is all we Ve said and done ? 
Behold, the whole world after Him is gone." 
Some sharply spake, as if to His behoof : ^^^ 

" Give thou to Thy disciples stern reproof ! " 
But Jesus said : '' If these refused to shout, 40 

The stones for shame would instantly cry out." 

When He drew nigh and saw the City, He 41 

Burst into tears of grief and sympathy, 
And said : '' O hadst thou known ere this, ev'n thou,^^ 
The things relating to thy peace ! but now 
They're hidden from thine eyes. For soon the days « 
Will come upon thee, when thy foes will raise 
A bank about thee, compass thee around 
In closest siege, and dash thee to the ground, 44 

And in the ruins will thy children crush, 
And will not leave thee in the downward rush 
One stone upon another, seeing thou 
Knew'st not thine opportunity was now." 



240 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Matt, 
xxi. lo 



Jerusalem now entered, it occurred 
That the whole city was profoundly stirred. 
When, '' Who is this?" was heard on every side, 
Th* attendant multitude at once replied : " 

" A Prophet this of great celebrity, 
Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee." 
Alighting, He into the Temple came, ^^ 

And, moved with pity, healed the blind and lame. 
But when the chief priests and the scribes beheld ^s 
The wonders He performed — heard, unrepelled. 
The children, crying in the Temple, say, 
'' Hosanna to the Son of David,"— they 
Great indignation and surprise express : 
" Hear'st Thou what these are saying ?" He said, 
u Yes ! ^6 

Did ye ne'er read (when men are dumb as now) 
' Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, Thou 
Defective praise hast perfected ' ?" Then He '7 

Went with the Twelve and lodged in Bethany. 

As to the City early He returned JJf ^^ 

Next morn, a fig tree He afar discerned, ^3 

Leafy and fair, and promising much fruit. 
But, when He came. He found there naught to suit. 
Nothing but leaves. " Let no fruit grow," He said '^ 



SECOND CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE. 241 

'' On thee henceforth ! "—and straight the tree was 

dead. Mark 



XI. 



Going into the Temple, stern and bold, ^s 

He 'gan to cast out them that bought and sold. 
The tables of the brokers overthrew, 
And seats of traffickers in doves, anew* — ^6 

Saying: '' My House, 'tis written, shall be styled ^7 
The House of Prayer, but ye have it defiled, 
And made the sacred place a robbers* den, 
The unhallowed haunt of false and thievish men." 
The scribes and chief priests having of this heard, ^^ 
Maddened yet more, by murd'rous fury urged. 
They would have seized Him, but were checked by 

fear, 
For Him the people came in crowds to hear — 
(He all day, teaching, in the Temple spent. 
And to the Mount of Olives nightly went). ^y 

As He was walking in the Temple, they ^7 

With haughty bearing, challenged Him to say. 
By what authority He dared thus do. 
He said : " I will one question ask of you, ^9 

Which, if ye answer, honoring truth and fact, 

*See the Evangel, p. 367, for an account of the first cleansing. 
16 



242 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



I '11 tell by what authority I act. ^^'^ 

Touching John's baptism, whence (tell if you can) 30 

Was it ? from Heaven ? or did it come from man ? " 

They reasoned thus among themselves : '' If we 31 

Shall say, ' From Heaven,' His replv will be, 

^ Why did ye not believe him then ? ' But if 32 

We say, ' From man,' we fear the people, stiff 

In the conviction and belief that John 

Was certainly a prophet." Whereupon 33 

They said, " We cannot tell." " Nor tell I you. 

By what authority I these things do." 

'' What think you of the story here rehearsed ? ^^^^^ 
A man, who had two sons, said to the first : 
'Go, work to-day, son, in my vineyard.' He 
Unfilially refused, but, speedily, =^9 

Repented of his wickedness, and went. 
He bade the second, who with feigned assent 30 

Replied : ' I go, sir,' but went not. Now say. 
Which of the twain his father did obey ? " 31 

They said, " The first." " E'en so I say to you, 
Ye promise, feign, profess, and fail to do. 
Of mortal sins, no doubt, the greatest one 
Is the complacent consciousness of none. 



THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 243 



What wonder, since repentance is the door, 
Harlots and pubHcans go in before ! 
For John came in the way of righteousness — 
Strict, separate, austere in food and dress- — 
And ye believed him not, but these believed, 
And full remission of their sins received : 

"■ Hear ye another Parable : A man 
Planted a vineyard on a generous plan, 
Hedged it round, dug a wine-vat, built a tower, 
And gave to certain husbandmen the power 
To keep and till it ; and then went away 
To a far country a long while to stay. 
And, when the season of the fruit drew near, 
He sent a servant to receive his share : 
And him they seized and beat and sent away 
Empty. He sent another then ; and they 
Him stoned, and wounded badly in the head. 
And handled shamefully. Then, in his stead, 
A third was sent, and man}^ more — this one 
They beat, that killed. He lastly sent his son. 
His only son, unutterably dear, 
Saying, ' My son at least they will revere.' 
But they, in council met, his death conspire. 



Matt. 
xxi. — 



Mark 
xii. I 



244 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



' Behold/ they said, ' all is as we desire ; ^f^^ 

This is the heir ; let us, now he 's alone, 

Him kill, and make th* inheritance our own.' 

They thrust him out the vineyard, and him slew. ^ 

What will the lord then of the vineyard do ? ^^f"; 

He '11 come, and will these wicked men destroy, 

And others give the vineyard to enjoy. 

So shall God's Kingdom taken be from you, 42 

And giv'n a nation yielding fruitage due." 

They, when they heard it, said : '' Let it not be !" 
And Jesus, looking on them, spake : " Have ye ^3 
Never the meaning of that Scripture weighed — 
' The Stone, the builders disallowed, is made 
Head of the corner by the Lord all wise. 
This is His work and wondrous in our eyes ' ? 
Who, stumbling, falls on it, is shattered found : 44 

But he, on whom it falls, to dust is ground." 

Knowing the Parable 'gainst them was said, ^s 

They would have seized Him, but they were afraid. ^'' 



TRIBUTE TO CAESAR. 



245 



XX. 

NEARING THE END. 

Matt. xxii. 15-46 ; Mark xii. 13-17 ; Luke xx. 20-44. 



Mark 
xii. 13 



ON His destruction constantly intent, 
They partizans of Herod to Him sent, 
To snare Him in His words, and get some ground 
On which a charge of fatal sort to found 
Before the Roman governor, whose breath 
Determined questions touching life and death. 
Disloyalty to Cassar could they prove. 
This would one serious obstacle remove. 
Which must attend a sentence, they foresaw, 
Grounded on simple breach of Jewish law. 
When they were come to Him, with tongue of guile, 
Feigning respect, they said in wheedling style : 
" Rabbi 1 we know, that Thou in all art true, ^4 

Speaking Thy thought concerning what is due. 
Fearless and bold, and caring not for men, 
Tell us, we pray Thee, what Thou thinkest then — 



246 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Ought we to Cassar tribute pay, or no ?I* ^^f^_^ 

He said : '' Why tempt ye Me ? Your craft I know, ^s 
Bring Me a penny* that I it may see." 
They brought it, and He said : '' Will ye tell Me, ^^ 
Whose is this image, and whose legend 's here ?" 
They answered, '"Csesar's." "Then your duty 's clear : 
Render to Cassar that which Caesar's is ; "^ 

And give to God likewise whate'er is His." 
Baffled and silenced, having naught to say. 
Admiring His address, they went their way. 



Matt 
xxii. 23 



Came Sadducees to Him on the same day— 
Deniers of the resurrection. They, 
Thinking to puzzle Him, a question raise, ="+ 

Based on Mosaic statute-law,f which says, 
' That if a man die childless, then, indeed, 
His brother shall his widow wed, and seed 
Raise to his brother.' " Now there were," they said>^5 
" With us seven brethren. Th' eldest being dead. 
No children having had, his wife was left 
To be his brother's. She again bereft, ^^ 

* A denarius, a Roman silver coin, worth about 17 cents. Its purchasing- value has 
been estimated at four or five times that. The drachma was a Greek coin of nearly 
the same value as the denarius. 

tit was named the "Levirate" — from the Latin levir, a husband's brother, or, 
brother-in-law. 



QUESTION OF THE SADDUCEES. 247 

Was married to the third, so up to seven : ^^?"- 

' J- xxii, 27 

To which of these will she be wife in heaven, ^^ 

xYfter the resurrection ?" Jesus said : =^9 

" Ye err, not having right the Scriptures read, 
Nor known the power of God ; for, when they rise, 3^ 
They 're like th' unmarried angels in the skies. 

" Touching the resurrection of the dead, 31 

Have ye not in the book of Moses read, 
How in the bush God to him spake : ' I am 32 

Thy fathers' God, the God of Abraham, 
Of Isaac, and of Jacob.' God is hence, 33 

Not in the preterite but present tense. 
Their God, not as extinct, but living yet." 
Ev'n foes were glad at the defeat the}^ met. 

The Pharisees He question'd : '' What think ye ^r 
Of the Messiah ? Whose Son should He be ?" 4^ 

They answer, " David's." " How does this accord 43 
With what he by the Spirit says : ' The Lord 
Said to my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, ^^ 

In universal and supreme command, 
Until Thy victory be made complete. 
And all Thy foes be put beneath Thy feet.' 
If David's Son, how calls he Him his Lord ?" 45 

And none of them could answer Him a word. 



248 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Matt, xxiii. 1-39 ; Mark xii. 38-44 ; Luke xx. 45-xxi. 4. 

He, in the hearing of the people, said ^^^^ 

To His disciples : " Be ye not betrayed 46 

By the example of the Scribes, who love — 
Dressed in long flowing robes to stately move, 
And greetings in the market-place respect, ^ 

And first seats in the synagogues aJBfect, 
And covet the first couches at the feasts — 
But who, like hungry and ferocious beasts. 
Devour defenceless widows' maintenance. 
And make long frequent prayers for a pretence. 
The better to entrap them and deceive. 
These shall a heavier punishment receive." 



He, speaking to the multitude, besides 
His own disciples, said : " Because the Scribes 
And Pharisees now sit in Moses' seat, 
And God's commandments and His laws repeat, 
Whate'er they bid you, that observe and do. 
But all their juggling falsities eschew. 
For that they say, and do not — by all modes 
Binding intolerable and grievous loads 
On others' shoulders, which they '11 not so much 
As with one solitary finger touch. 



Matt, 
xxiii. I 



LAW AND PENALTY. 



249 



Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, who dare xJiif *i 

Before th' All-seeing, act a part,* and wear 

A mask, and personate and play the saint, 

While all your sanctity is but a feint — 

So used to your disguise, ye hardly dream 

That ye are otherwise than what ye seem. 

Woe to you, hypocrites ! The woe to state 

Is not to wish it or to imprecate. 

I speak to warn you. Ye yourselves must know 

Sin is the sure progenitor of woe. 

The genial flame that warms you, also hath 

A dreadful potency of dreadful wrath — 

Woe to the foolish hand, that wakes the ire 

And retribution of the vengeful fire ! 

All woe and suffering, rightly understood, 

Implies some false relation to the good. 

A wrong position to the universe 

Will turn the best of things into a curse. 

The light is sweet, and pleasant to the eye 

The sun's bright pomp proceeding through the sky, 

But woe to eyes that turn to it inflamed ! 

Yet, for the anguish, shall the light be blamed ? 

* The earlier meaning of the Greek word ^'XixonpLTrig (Hypocrite) is ^^one who plays 
a part on the stage," " a player," " an actor ;" whence comes the later meaning, " a 
dissembler," "feigner," '■'■ hypocrite^ 



250 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Because ye suffer, shall the sun be wrenched x?^^"- 

From its bright orbit, and its beams be quenched ? 

Which would ye have, the suffering sense made whole ? 

Or palsy strike the universal soul ? 

Would ye abolish feeling to obtain 

Exemption and relief from local pain ? 

' Woe to the man who sins,' all nature cries ! 

And, ' Woe !' the Spirit in the Word replies I 

But greater woe to him, who healing grace 

Keeps back from any of the human race ! 

'' Woe to you. Scribes and Pharisees, therefore, '3 
Who keep a jealous watch, and shut the door 
Of the New Kingdom, which to enter in 
Is full salvation from the power of sin — 
Not entering yourselves, and, those about 
To enter, hindering and barring out. 
Woe, for ye roam o'er sea, and land as well, "s 

To make one proselyte a child of hell. 

" Blind guides ! that say, ' Who by the Temple 
swear, ^^ 

They are not bound ; if by the gold that 's there 
They swear, the oath holds good.' Ye fools and blind ! 
Which greater is, the gold, or that behind, '7 

The Temple's self, which sanctifies the gold ? 



WOES DENOUNCED. 25 I 



Matt, 
xxiii. lE 



' Who by the Altar swears, it does not hold ; 

But who swears by the gift that thereon lies, 

The same is bound.' Ye blind, not having eyes ! '9 

For is the gift more, or the altar more 

That sanctifies the gift ? He who, therefore, ^° 

Swears by the altar, swears by what it bears. 

So likewise, he, who by the Temple swears, ^'■ 

Swears both by it and Him that there abides. 

Who swears by Heaven, he swears by God besides. ^^ 

"Woe to you. Scribes and Pharisees ! because, ^^ 
While ye tithe mint, ye slight eternal laws 
Requiring justice, mercy, faith : the one 
Ye do, but leave the weightier undone. 
Bhnd guides ! who filter out the gnat scarce seen, ^^ 
But gulp the camel monstrous and unclean. 
Woe to you, hypocrites, because ye wish -^ 

To cleanse the outside of the cup and dish. 
But care not they 're filled up and foul within, 
From robbery, iniquity, and sin : — 
Blind Pharisee ! first th' inside purify, ^^ 

For e'en the outside shall be cleansed thereby. 

''Woe to you, hypocrites ! for ye are like 
To whited sepulchres, whose seemings strike, 
Outwardly fair, but, all within the stones, 



27 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



252 

Matt. 
28 



Foulness unspeakable and dead men's bones : ^^^^ 



So ye seem righteous, but ye nevertheless 

Are full of inward lies and rottenness. 

Woe to 3^ou, hypocrites ! because ye build, ^9 

And deck the tombs of those your fathers killed — 

Prophets and righteous men — and falsely say, 30 

Ye would have been less bloody than were they. 31 

Fill up the measure of your fathers, see 32 

Ye match their murderous malignity ! 

Serpents and vipers, venomous and fell, 33 

How shall ye 'scape the punishment of hell ! 

"Lo, I, in love and mercy, send to you 34 

Prophets and teachers to instruct and woo : 
Of them, some ye will kill and crucify ; 
Others will scourge, afflict, and cause to fly. 
That so the crowning guilt may shame your head 35 
Of all the righteous blood that e'er was shed. 
This generation, lo, in blood and tears, 36 

Shall reap the justice of four thousand years. 

'' O hadst thou been inclined, Jerusalem ! 37 

Who kill'st the prophets, and who stonest them 
Who unto thee are sent, how oft I then 
Thy children would have gathered, as a hen 



VISION OF THE FATE OF JERUSALEM. 25 "> 

Gathers her chickens 'neath her sheltering wings, ^xJif — 
But ye would not, and scorned My threatenings ! 
Behold the time is coming and makes haste, 38 

When shall your house, abandoned and laid waste, 
Be turned into a desert, and its proud 
Upturned foundations, like a field be ploughed. 
Henceforth, ye shall not see Me, till ye say, 39 

The Lord is Lord, we own his righteous sway." 

These woes Truth thundered into guilty ears, 
Then, at the close, Love melted into tears. 
He spake for the last time. How like a knell. 
In the doomed Temple, sounded His farewell. 
Events to come, so clearly were foreseen. 
They seemed as if they had already been, 
Or were transpiring now before His eyes. 
He saw the ruin in dread vision rise — 
Each several stone, reel in the tottering wall 
Of house and temple, making haste to fall ; 
Saw on the goodliest, a stain of guilt. 
The blood of innocence aforetime spilt. 
And therefore fated, branded and accursed, 
With leanings towards perdition from the first. 
With all beholding eyes, the wisdom saw 



254 'T^E LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

And the unchallenged justice of the law, 
Whereby each generation must and should 
Be heirs of previous evil and of good — 
Each sin committed, since the world began, 
Its curse entailing on the race of man — 
The error sown a thousand years ago, 
Yielding fresh harvests of unending woe. 

The causes of a nation's ruin may 
Have criminal beginnings far away : 
But oh ! the mounting horror of the time. 
When topples down the edifice of crime ! 
If founded on the weakness of a lie. 
Unstable were the pillars of the sky. 



Mark 
xii. 41 



Weary He sat — just ready to withdraw — 
Over against the Treasury, and saw 
Rich men cast in their gifts. Among the rest 42 

Came a poor widow, who threw in the chest 
Two mites which make a farthing. Jesus saith 43 
To His disciples : " This poor widow hath 
Cast more into the Treasury, than such 
As of their superfluity gave much." ^^ 

Certain Greek proselytes, as He passed through l^^^ 
The Outer Court, desired an interview. ''^ 



GREEK PROSELYTES. 255 



John 
xii. 23 



With thoughts of His near death preoccupied, 

He said, " The hour, when must be glorified 

The Son of Man, is come. Till seed is thrown ^^ 

Into the ground and dies, it bides alone ; 

But, dying, bears much fruit. So when I die, 

I, like the corn, My life will multiply. 

Who loves his selfish life and keeps it sole, ^s 

Shall rot unsown, and perish as a whole. 

Who holds his temporal life, for my sake, cheap, 

He unto life eternal shall it keep. 

Would a man serve Me, let him follow Me, ^^ 

And where I am there shall My servant be. 

" My soul is troubled now. What shall I say ? ^7 
' O Father, save me from this hour ? But, nay ! 
On purpose, for this dreadful hour I came : 
Even so. Father glorify Thy name ! ' " ^^ 

A Voice from heaven said, '' Full oft have I 
It glorified, and it will glorify 

Again." Of people standing by, who heard, ^^ 

Some said, " It thundered." Others there averred, 
''An angel spake to Him." "This word from Heaven3° 
Was not," He said, " for Mine but your sakes given. 
Now shall the world be judged. I will cast out 3^ 
The Prince of Evil, and his armies rout ; 



2^6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

The reign of Love I will inaugurate J^J^L 

Upon the ruins of the throne of Hate. 

And I, if I be lifted up, will draw, 32 

By the magnetic force of love and law, 

All men to Me — the simple and the sage. 

Throughout the earth, and to the latest age." 

Matt. xxiv. 1-51 ; xxv. 1-46 ; Mark xiii. 1-37 ; Luke xxi. 5-36. 

He now the Temple left for the last time ; ^j^^^ 

Crossed the brook Kedron, and began to climb 
The Mount of Olives. The disciples' gaze 
Directed backwards, they, struck with amaze. 
Cried out : " See, Master, what great stones are here ! 
What splendid buildings, rising tier 'bove tier ! 
See those nine gates, all overlaid v/ith gold 
And silver, and that other one, behold, 
Of solid rich Corinthian brass ! Note 
Those blocks of marble, shaped in times remote. 
Twice sixteen cubits* long, ten cubits high ! 
Observe how rich and gorgeous to the eye 
The giant clusters of that golden vine. 
That round the golden doors and door-posts twine ! 
How beautiful, how holy to the sight. 
The topmost Naos f glittering and white — 

* Josephus, Ve Bell.Jud.^ V., 5. + The Sanctuary or Temple proper. 



DESTRUCTION OF THE CITY AND TEMPLE. 257 

Seen from this height, beneath the sunset glow, ^'^^""^ 



XUl. 



How like a glorious mountain crowned with snow ! " 

And Jesus said : " As for these things ye see, ^ 

The day will come, in which there shall not be, 
From the foundation to the topmost stone. 
One left upon another not o'erth^-own/'* 

The summit reached, He sat upon the height — 3 
Temple and City lay right opposite. 
All that had passed since morn to memory rose 
To solemnize the day's approaching close. 
Peter and James and John and Andrew came — 
Part of the Twelve — and speaking in their name, 
Besought, that He would tell them privately. 
When this would happen ; what the sign would be 4 
Of His next Coming ; and, moreo'er, presage 
The end and consummation of the age. 

* Gibbon, in the seventy-first chapter of his History of the Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire, speaks of the Coliseum as " an edifice, which, had it been left to time 
and nature, might have claimed an eternal duration." He quotes the proverbial say- 
ing (reported by the venerable Bede as current in his time — he dying in the year 735): 
''As long as the Coliseum stands, Rome shall stand ; when the Coliseum falls, Rome 
will fall ; when Rome falls, will fall the world." It is highly probable, that the disci- 
ples had entertained a like view of the Temple ; and when the Master predicted its 
ruin and the destruction of Jerusalem, they associated therewith a simultaneous de- 
struction of the world. Of this association there are intimations in Matthew ; but in 
Mark and Luke we have a simple reference to the destruction of the Temple and the 
City ; and the inquiry addressed to the Lord hcis sole reference to the time when this 

17 



258 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Mark 
xiii. 5 



And Jesus answering began to say : 

'* Beware, lest any man lead you astray. 

Many impostors will assume my name, ^ 

Saying, ' I am the Christ,' and, by that claim, 

Deceiving many. When on every side, 

Ye hear of wars, be ye not terrified, ^ 

For these must be, but not yet is the end : 

should take place. A prurient and mistaken curiosity led them on this and other oc- 
casions to ask about things which did not concern them. 

Not satisfied with the information that the destruction would take place, they must 
know the exact time. Christ has been understood as saying that He did not know 
Himself. But strictly taken, this would seem to be an impossible sense. While ac- 
cepting His two-fold nature, divine and human, we do not believe in such a dichot- 
omy as would rob Him of a plenary divine consciousness and knowledge of all 
things. His ignorance, if ignorance it could be called, would be at best only a quasi 
ignorance, official or functional, not a real one. For Him to disclose matters which 
men had no right to know, and which the Father chose to keep in His own power — 
such as precise times and seasons — were impossible. If He knew them, it was not for 
us He knew them. He did not know them as the ordained Organ of Revelation. It 
may be laid down as a universal truth, that Revelation limits its disclosures to things 
needful for us to know. It comports not with its dignity to minister to an idle curi- 
osity. Prophecy is something more and something better than a vulgar fortune-tell- 
ing. Life is not fatalistic, but moral and free. Well-being is contingent on well- 
doing. The duty and need of watchfulness are based on the uncertainties of the 
future. Such a prediction of future events, therefore, as should leave no doubt in 
regard to the time and manner of their happening, would be fatal to moral freedom. 

By keeping steadily in mind the principles which govern in all such cases, not for- 
getting the limitation adverted to, which confines all disclosures to some gracious 
purpose of utility, we cannot fail to be helped in the right interpretation of these 
"prophecies of the Mount." Now, the destruction of Jerusalem did concern them 
who asked, and Christ therefore was tolerant toward their inquiry, so far as to give 
them information in regard to the signs which should precede and usher it in, in order 
that they might make provision for their safety. Even though we admit that their 
question had a larger scope. Our Lord in His reply would be sure, ignoring what was 
irrelevant or improper, to communicate only what was important for them to know ; 
and Mark and Luke, as before intimated, in omitting all reference to everything else, 
would seem to have regarded all that was special in the prophecy as having relation 



DESTRUCTION OF THE CITY AND TEMPLE. 259 



Matt. 
xxiv.7 



Nation shall rise 'gainst nation and contend ; 
Kingdom 'gainst kingdom. Scarcity of bread, 
Plagues following, great earthquakes, sights of dread. 
And signs in heaven, mark but th' initial throes* ^ 
And warning birthpangs of forthcoming woes. 
Then they '11 afflict you, and your life will take. 9 

All nations will you hate for My name's sake. 
Many will stumble, and will fall away 
And hate will one another and betray. 

to the destruction of Jerusalem. That was a particular event, which they of that gen- 
eration might live to see. Some, not all. If in that event, there was a solemn and 
portentous Coming of the Son of Man affecting a whole people and nation ; there were 
other Comings, He would have them know, awful and imminent, in the case of every 
individual. The knife of judgment would cut between those standing nearest to each 
other — one would be taken and the other left. There would seem to be no need of 
limiting the number of His Comings. In one sense they are infinite. He is present in 
every event. To me and to all men as individuals, it may be said, however, that there 
are two special comings. First, in the proclamation of the Word, and, second, in 
death, when account must be rendered of its reception. Here, if we mistake not, is 
the key to that recurring refrain, Watch ! 

It would lessen the difficulties of interpretation immensely could we be content to 
be simple and not subtle. Surely, Christ's mission in the world was not and is not to 
destroy but save. His relation to the race has ever been that of a Saviour. It was so 
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem even amid the culminating horrors of the siege. For 
aught we know, He may have been so to some in fact down to the very last hour. In 
what respect in principle was His coming to destroy Jerusalem different from His 
coming to destroy anything else that was rotten, even a tree ? He is, to be sure, the 
Author of self-executing laws. It is true, that fire will burn. Let him, therefore, who 
would not be burned avoid the fire. The calamities which befell the Jews were se- 
quent as the links of a chain ; and were essentially self-inflicted and inevitable. Divine 
Pity wept over them in prospect, and interposed to shorten not prolong them. Sure 
am I, that let there be ten thousand hells, they are all of the sinner's own kindling. 
God is love. 

* The Greek word rendered "sorrows" in the Received Version, means primarily and 
specifically " the pangs or throes of labor," 



26o THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Matt. 
xxiv. ir 



Many false prophets numbers will entice. 

Because of prevalent lawlessness and vice, '^ 

The love of many will wax cold. But he, ^3 

Who to the end continues, saved shall be. 

The Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached '^ 

Among all nations,* witnessing to each. 

And then shall come the end I have foretold. 

" When ye then shall Jerusalem behold '5 

Compassed with armies, ye may understand 
Its speedy desolation is at hand. 
Let them_, who in Judea then shall be. 
To the Perean mountainsf straightway flee. 
Let him, that 's on the housetop, not descend 
To take aught from the house, but his way wend, 
From roof to roof to the town wall, with speed. 
And thus escape, so urgent is the need. 
Neither let him, that 's in the field, turn back ^^ 

To take his clothes, for foes are on his track. 
Alas, for those, who in those days shall be ^9 

With child, or who give suck, and cannot flee ! 

* More properly " all the Gentiles." So in verse 9, meaning the Gentiles generally, 
The " end," in the next line, refers, it is thought, to the end of the Jewish polity. 

+ It is stated on the authority of Eusebius, that, warned by this prophecy, the Chris- 
tians fled from the city, some to Pella beyond the Jordan, and others to Mount Le- 
banon, and that not a single one perished in the siege. 



16 



17 



NEED OF IMMEDIATE FLIGHT. 261 



Matt, 
xxiv. 20 



Pray your escape be not in winter, lest 
Cold storms and swollen streams your flight arrest. 
Nor on the Sabbath day, lest some through fear 
Delay immediate flight on grounds sincere. 

''Then shall be tribulation, greater than ^i 

Was ever witnessed since the world began — 
Supreme, unequalled horrors will attend 
The City's siege, catastrophe and end ; 
So that, did mercy not curtail the date, ^^ 

No one would scarce survive the general fate. 

''Should, in this season of distress and fear, ^3 

One say, ' Behold, the Christ is here, or here,' 
Believe it not. For there shall then arise 
False Christs, and Prophets in pretentious guise, ^4 
With signs and wonders fitted to mislead. 
Remember, I have warned you, so take heed. ^5 

If they proclaim, ' He 's in the desert,' be ^^ 

Ye not deluded, go not forth to see. 
Or, ' He 's within shut doors,' believe it not — 
For, not unknown nor limited to one spot. 
Shall be the Coming of the Son of Man ; 
But sudden, swift — the instant lightning^^ can ^7 

* Calvin interprets this as referring to the preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles. 
Whatever other fulfilments it may have, it has inevitably one at death — when there is 
an instantaneous transition and revelation to all mankind. 



262 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Not equal it that flames across the sky — xx1v"— 

A dazzhng presence to the opened eye, 
Where is the carcass, there the eagles are : 
When time is ripe, fulfilments are not far. 

[They do not err, that make the firmament 
The theatre of each divine event ; 
And see the Godhead, on that heavenly stage 
Great epochs punctuate, or end the age ; 
Speak of His goings forth in glorious might, 
Although invisible to natural sight.] 

'' Immediately following those days ^9 

Of tribulation, and supreme amaze. 
The sun and moon shall darkened* be, and all 

* Or as we would express it in occidental speech, there will follow days of darkness 
to individuals, and the whole Jewish people, unrelieved by a single ray of light from 
any quarter. 

" O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, 
Irrevocably dark, total eclipse 
Without all hope of day ! " 

Their glory will have departed, and their polity have come to an end. They will be 
carried away captive, and scattered among the Gentiles ; and Jerusalem their pride 
and boast will be trodden down by profaning feet. Their ruin will be complete and 
overwhelming. In the conceptions of oriental poetry, this quenching of the light of 
the soul in the human microcosm ; this national wreck, utter and hopeless, are equiv- 
alent to the fall and blotting out of the great luminaries of the physical universe — the 
macrocosm. The same or similar imagery is employed in the foretelling of the de- 
struction of Babylon (Isaiah xiii. lo) ; also of Tyre (Isaiah xxiv. 23) ; again in describ- 
ing the slaughter of Bozrah and Idumea (Isaiah xxxiv. 4). 



END OF THE JEWISH POLITY. 263 



Matt. 

XXIV. — 



Luke 
xxi. 24 



The constellations, like ripe fruit, shall fall 

From out the shaken heavens — void to the eye 

The stellar glories of the Jewish sky. 

Then those, who to the sword fall not a prey. 

Into all nations shall be led away 

Captive ; and their demolished buried town, 

Jerusalem, shall thence be trodden down. 

Continuously, by hated Gentile feet. 

Until the time appointed be complete. 

'' Lo, everywhere upon the earth shall be ^s 

Distress of nations"^^" and perplexity — 
Seas and waves roaring — a heart-sickening dread ^^ 
Of something, yet more terrible, ahead. 
Then shall, o'er the horizon shining clear, ^7 

The signals of the Son of Man appear. 
Many, convinced of sin and penitent,t 



Matt, 
xxiv. 30 



* The perplexity, distress and misery of the time, so far as the Roman Empire is 
concerned, are powerfully portrayed by Tacitus in the commencement of his History, 
He speaks of " four emperors murdered ; three civil wars, many foreign, the greater 
number mixed ; both Gauls threatening a revolt ; Italy afflicted with new slaughters, 
repeated ; cities (Pompeii and Herculaneum) buried and swallowed up ; Rome partly 
laid in ashes, her most venerable temples consumed, the Capitol itself fired by the 
hands of citizens ; the sea filled with exiles," etc. He relates how " in Rome rank and 
riches and virtue were certain death ; how nothing was sacred, and nothing safe." 
His description of the prevailing corruption answers to that found in the first chapter 
of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans. 

+ It is something, he trusts, akin to Christian instinct which leads the writer to re- 
ject the current interpretation, which makes the Juotirningh&VG. spoken of, other than 



264 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Shall smite their breasts and lift a loud lament, xJ?v"^ 

Till, on the darkness of their nig-ht of grief, 

At once shall break the morning of belief, 

And they shall see Him with enraptured eyes 

In mighty pomp descending from the skies. 

But terrible the aspect of that face 

To those who mourn rejection of His grace. 

He shall send forth His messengers to sound 31 

The Gospel trump wherever man is found ; 

And they shall gather from all lands and climes 

Th' elect of God down to the latest times. 

'' Behold the fig tree, when the leaves appear, 32 
Ye know the Summer certainly is near — 
So, when ye see these things, then understand 
Fulfillment of My word is close at hand. 
This generation shall not pass away, 34 

Till all shall happen even as I say. 
But of that day the knowledge is concealed, 36 

The Father's secret, not to be revealed 
Ev'n by the Son— sole channel of His thought, 
The Speaking Word that tells but what He ought. 

repentance. Mourning- is the first sign of grace ; and, surely, there is nothing better 
adapted to awaken it than the believing vision of the Son of Man coming in the glory 
of His love and goodness to seek and save that which is lost. 



THE DUTY OF WATCHING. 265 

'* Think it not strange, I frame ambiguous speech ; 
Take heed ! is the great lesson I would teach, x^v"- 
Concerning things that to the siege pertain, 
'T is needful that I speak in language plain. 
But of My Future Coming, 't were not fit, 
That ye should know the day and hour of it. 
Enough to know, it is not far away ; 
That it may be to-morrow, or to-day. 
What if at death, the vision shall be given 
Of My Great Coming in the clouds of heaven ? 
So that ye watch, 't is of small consequence, 
If it be now, or twenty centuries hence. 
One thing is sure, whenever it shall be, ss 

This generation shall be there to see. 

" Take heed, lest that your hearts overburdened be 
With sordid cares and sensuality, ^^^^^ 

And that day come, when you are not aware — 
For it shall come on all men as a snare. 35 

Watch ye and pray therefore ! Like as a man, J^f'3^^ 
Going abroad, drew out at length a plan, 
By which each servant had his task assigned. 
Putting in charge, of those he left behind, 
His house, he told the keeper of the gate 



266 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

To watch for his return, and patient wait. ^^^f^^ 

Watch, therefore, seeing ye all knowledge lack, 

When will the Master of the house come back — 

At evening, midnight, crowing of the cock, 

Or morning — lest He, unexpected, knock 36 

And find you sleeping. What to you I say, 

I say to all. Watch evermore, and pray ! 

" Ye know, that had the householder foreseen, ^•^"- 

^ XXI V, A.'i, 

What time the coming of the thief had been. 

He would have watched, and with all patience too, 

And not allowed his house to be broke through. 

Who is that faithful and wise servant, whom 45 

His Master has appointed in his room, 

While absent, o'er his household to preside, 

And in due season needful food provide ? 

Happy that servant, whom his lord shall find 46 

Doing, at his return, the work assigned ! 

He, verily, will set him o'er the whole 47 

Of his estate, and give him full control. 

But if that servant in his heart shall say : 48 

' My absent lord his coming doth delay,' 

And shall begin outrageously to beat 49 

And vex his fellow-servants, and shall eat 



PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS. 267 



Matt, 
xxiv. — 



And drink moreo'er with drunkards, suddenly, 
His lord shall come — at, too, an hour when he 50 

Expects him not — and shall, Avith dreadful lash 
Asunder cut^ his flesh and deeply gash, 51 

And him consign to dungeon glooms beneath. 
Where there are weeping eyes and gnashing teeth. 

" My Kingdom shall be likened in the end ^-^v- ^ 

Unto ten virgins, sent forth to attend 
The coming bridegroom on his lighted road, 
With song and music to the bride's abode. 
Taking their lamps, they went forth him to meet 
From the bride's house into the darkened street. 
But waited, meanwhile, in some dwelling near. 
Till the delayed procession should appear. 
And five were wise, providing against need : ^ 

And five were foolish, without thought or heed. 
Now while the bridegroom tarried, they all slept. 5 
But, lest their lamps should fail, the wise oil kept 4 
In flasks, outside their lamps, a full supply. 
Not so the foolish ones should theirs run dry. 3^ 

*" Shall dichotomize or cut in two." The meaning here cannot be the severing of the 
body either with a sword or saw (which was one mode of putting to death sometimes 
practiced) because he is spoken of as surviving the punishment. It is probable, there- 
fore, that It is a hyperbolical expression for scourging. 



268 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

A cry at midnight rose with noise of feet : ^^"^ 

' Behold, the bridegroom ! Him come forth to meet !' 

Then they all rose and trimm'd their lamps. Dismay 'd, 

The foolish to the wise petition made : ^ 

' Give of your oil, our lamps are going out.' 

' Not so,' they said, ' we have not, beyond doubt, ^ 

Enough for both. Go ye to those who sell 

And buy !' While they were going, it befell ^° 

The bridegroom came ; and those, who ready were 

Went in where was the marriage to occur. 

And straight the door was shut. And, afterward, " 

The other virgins came, saying, ' Lord ! Lord ! 

« 

Open to jis.' But he replied, ' Too late — 
I know you not. I '11 not unclose the gate.' 
Watch without ceasing ! Ready be alway ! ^3 

For ye know not the hour, nor know the day. 

" When in that glory comes the Son of Man, 31 
Had with the Father ere the world began, 
And all the angels with Him, He shall then 
Sit on His throne of glory, judging m.en. 
All nations'^ shall before Him gathered be, 3^ 

*01hausen understands by the expression, "all nations," not all mankind, but all 
men with the exception of true believers, f/tai z's, all tmbelievers. True believers he 
claims, do not come into judgment at all ; but, at the resurrection of the just, enter 
at once into joy. In the present Parable, if parable it may be called, they constitute 
Christ's angelic retinue, or at least a part of it, and are referred to by Him as " My 



THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS. 269 



Matt. 

XXV. — 



The good and bad alike promiscuously ; 
And He between them shall discriminate, 
And shall one from the other separate — 
As doth the shepherd from his sheep divide 

brethren." Stier, who adopts substantially the same view, censures the old interpre- 
tation, which assumes that the General Judgment is intended, as erroneous and false. 
It may be that the old interpretation needs revision, but it is impossible to accept that 
as the true one — which makes a few acts of hospitable kindness done to the Christian 
brotherhood, disjoined from repentance and faith, as sufficient for salvation— without 
subverting the whole scheme of Christian doctrine. It would be far easier to believe 
as some do, that, while it is admitted, the words "all nations," or as the Revised 
Version gives it, " all the nations," is the Jewish equivalent for " all the Gen- 
tiles," Our Lord intended under this judicial form or similitude to convey the 
solemn warning, that, according to the reception given to His Gospel about to be 
preached in all the world, and the treatment of His messengers (Himself being identi- 
fied with it and them) will men's fates be determined. It is inevitable that wherever 
Christ is preached men should take sides for or against Him. They pass to His right 
hand or His left. The division that takes place is a voluntary one, and according to 
character. It pertains to this life as much as to the next. All this is in perfect corres- 
pondence with His teachings elsewhere. At the first sending out of the Twelve, He 
said, " He that receiveth you receiveth Me, etc. * * * He that is not for Me is against 
Me. And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold 
water only in the name of a disciple, he shall in no wise lose his reward." And at 
His final sending out. He said, " Go, preach : whosoever believeth shall be saved, and 
whosoever believeth not shall be condemned." It would seem to matter little,whether 
this adjudication takes place, with the outward pomp and circumstances of a visible 
Coming at the End of the World, or invisibly and now. 

The motive of the above commentators, in their strange exposition, does not justify 
it. It springs no doubt from a desire to find some direct, explicit assurance that the 
virtuous heathen, who have never heard the Gospel, will nevertheless be saved. While 
no man has the right to say that they will not be, still it is true, that Scripture is silent 
upon that point. So in regard to the salvation of children dying in infancy, it is no- 
where said in so many words that they will be saved, but we take it for granted that 
they will be. "Are there few that be saved ?" is another example of that inquisitiveness 
which is unwilling to trust God any farther than He has given His word. " Will not 
the Judge of all the earth do right ?" Are we more righteous than He, or more loving ? 
To insist upon answers to questions merely speculative is impertinent and unseemly. 

The mediaeval view (which is likewise the prevailing modern one) was never more 
vividly realized than in the famous Judgment Hymn— Dz'es Irce—oi which the writer 
appends a Translation, one of the Thirteen which he published some years ago. 



2/0 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



The goats — to set the sheep on His right side, J^^J^- 
The goats set on His left. Then shall the King, 34 
Transporting words of glorious v/elcoming, 
Smiling to them on His right hand address : 
' Ye blessed of My Father, come, possess 
The kingdom destined, all the ages through. 
From the foundation of the world, for you. 
For I was hungry and ye gave Me meat ; 35 

Thirsty and gave Me drink ; lay in the street, 
A stranger, and, in kindness and good will, 
Received Me ; naked, and ye clothed Me ; ill, 36 

In prison, and made haste to visit Me.' 
Then shall the righteous say : ' When, Lord, saw we 37 
Thee hungry and Thee fed? With thirst opprest. 
And gave Thee drink ? A stranger, lodged thee ? 
Drest 38 

Thee, naked ? Or, sick, and Thee went to see ? 39 
Shut up in prison, and did visit Thee ?' 
The King shall answer from His Judgment Seat, '^^ 
With voice of love melodious and sweet : 
' For that ye did it to the meanest one 
Of these. My brethren, it to Me was done.' 
Then He will say to those who trembling stand, ^i 
The guilty multitude on His left hand. 



SEPARATION OF THE JUST AND UNJUST. 271 

^ Depart, ye cursed, and abide the ire ^v!- 

Of the eternal, all-consuming fire ! 

For I was hungry, and ye would not feed ; 42 

Was parched with thirst, and ye despised My need ; 

A stranger, and against Me shut the door ; 43 

Was naked, and gave nothing of your store ; 

111, and in prison, and came not to Me.' 

Then they will answer : ' When, Lord, saw we Thee 44 

Hungry, athirst, a stranger, naked, ill. 

In prison, and were wanting in good will ?' 

Then He shall answer them with brow severe : 45 

' Since to the least of these. My brethren, here, 

Ye did it not, ye did it not to Me — 

Deaf to the pleading voice of charity.' 

'' These shall depart, to bide the lopping knife* 46 
Of lasting sev'rance from the Tree of Life ; 

♦The lexical meanings of the Greek K6?idcig=^o^aszs, rendered, "punishment," 
are a pruning^ or loppi^ig off^ applied to trees etc. Hence a checking, chas- 
tisejnent, correction, pu7tishment. It answers to the Latin, Castigatio (whence our 
English word, castigation) whose primary meaning, like the Greek word, is a 
pruning, then chastisement, correctio7i, punishment. Nearly all translators and 
expositors agree in assigning to it the meaning of punishment — a few only construing 
it in its primary sense of a " lopping ofi." Taking it even in this sense, it is a word of 
fearful import, for it could not mean less than an eternal separation and alienation 
from the life of God, like a branch severed from the vine and condemned to the 
flames. This has always appeared to the writer to be one of the strongest texts in the 
whole Bible in support of the doctrine of eternal punishment ; and he frankly admits, 
that he would like above all things, to find justification for a different rendering and 
a milder exegesis than the usual one. 



272 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

While that the righteous, branches of a Tree ^f[ 
Whose roots strike deep into eternity, 
Shall flourish, fixed in that immortal sod, 
Full of the flowing sap and life of God." 



DIES IRJE.— Trans/atim. 

That Day ! that awful Day ! the Last ! 
Result and sum of all the Past : 
Great necessary Day of Doom, 
When wrecking fires shall all consume ! 

What dreadful shrieks the air shall rend. 
When all shall see the Judge descend, 
And hear th' Archangel's echoing shout 
From heavenly spaces ringing out ! 

The Trump of God, with quickening breath, 
Shall pierce the silent realms of death ; 
And sound the summons in each ear, 
Arise ! thy Maker calls : Appear ! 

From east to west, from south to north, 
The earth shall travail and bring forth — 
As desert's sands, and ocean's waves. 
Shall be the sum of empty graves. 



DIES IR^.— TRANSLATION. 

Th' unchanging Record of the Past 
Shall then be read from first to last, 
And, out ot things therein contained. 
Shall all be judged, and fates ordained. 

No lying tongue, that truth distorts. 
Shall witness in that Court of Courts : 
Each secret thing shall be revealed. 
And every righteous sentence sealed. 

Ah ! who can stand when He appears ? 
Confront the guilt of sinful years ? 
What hope for me, a wretch depraved, 
When scarce the righteous man is saved ? 

Dread Monarch of the Earth and Heaven ! 
For that salvation 's great, 't is given ; 
And, since the boon is wholly free, 
O Fount of Pity, save Thou me ! 

Remember, Jesus, how my case 
Once moved Thy pity and Thy grace, 
And brought Thee down on earth to stay ; 
O lose me not then on that Day ! 



V^ 



i8 



274 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

I seek Thee, who didst seek me first, 
Weary and hungry and athirst. 
Didst pay my ransom on the tree — 
Let not such labor frustrate be ! 

Just Judge of vengeance in the end ! 
Now in the accepted time befriend : 
My sins, O graciously remit. 
Ere Thou judicially shalt sit ! 

Low at Thy feet I groaning lie : 
With blushing cheek, and weeping eye. 
And stammering lips, I urge the prayer, 
O spare me, God of mercy, spare ! 

When Mary Thy forgiveness sought, 
Wept, but articulated naught, 
Thou didst forgive ; didst hear the brief 
Petition of the dying thief. 

On grace thus great my hope is built, 

That Thou wilt cancel too my guilt ; 

That, though my prayers are worthless breath, 

Thou wilt deliver me from death. 



DIES IR^.— TRANSLATION. 

When Thy dividing rod of might 
Appointeth stations opposite, 
Among Thy sheep grant me to stand, 
Far from the goats, at Thy right hand. 

And when despair shall seize each heart, 
That hears the dreadful sound, ' Depart !' 
Be mine, the heavenly lot of some. 
To hear that word of welcome, ' Come ! 

I come to Thee with trembling trust, 
And lay my forehead in the dust : 
In my last hour do Thou befriend, 
And not forsake me in my end. 



275 



2/6 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



XXI. 

THE LAST SUPPER.— FAREWELL WORDS. 

Matt. xxvi. 1-29 ; Mark xiv, 1-25 ; Luke xxii. 1-20 ; John xii. 2— xiii. 35. 



I 



Matt. 
xxvi. 2 



N deepest silence the disciples heard, 

And treasured in their hearts each solemn word. 

" After two days the Feast is," Jesus said 
Of the Passover and Unleavened Bread, 
What time the Son of Man, betrayed and tried, 
Will be condemned to death and crucified." 

E'en then, conspiring and consulting sat 3 

Chief priests and scribes and elders, gathered at 
The house of Caiaphas, how Him to take 
By craft, and kill. They, fearing an outbreak 4- 

Among the people, said, it were not best s 

During the Feast, Him openly t' arrest. 

Being in Bethany, at the abode ^ 

Of Simon, long a leper, they bestowed 
A loyal welcome, and a supper made, 



John 
xii. 2 



MARY'S PERPETUAL MEMORIAL. 277 

In boundless gratitude for healing aid. • /i^^l 

And Martha served ; and Lazarus was there ; 

And Mary, anxious to perform her share, 3 

Taking a pound of spikenard, rare and sweet, 

She poured it out upon His head and feet, 

Then wiped them with her hair — the rich perfume 

Spread through the house, pervading every room. 

Some there, who knew how much the ointment cost,^'" ^ 

Thought it a pity so much should be lost ; 

And Judas, mqst of all, made virtuous haste 

To speak his disapproval of the waste : 

'' Why vainly throw away what would procure s 

Three hundred pence to feed the starving poor?" 

This said he, caring not for them a whit, ^ 

But as he bore the purse could steal from it 

Then Jesus said : " Let her alone ! for she 7 

Has wrought a good, and pious work on Me : 

Behold, the poor ye have with you alway, ^ 

But Me not alway ! She forestalls the day ^yi'^^ 

Of My embalmment for My burial, 

Now just at hand. In all the world where shall ^3 

Be preached My Gospel, this shall, I aver. 

Be told for a memorial of her." 

* The probable cost has been estimated as high as three hundred dollars, faking- into 
account the difference in the value of silver now and then — actual value about fifty. 



2^% THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Theif Judas — he, surnamed Iscariot — x^v1"i+ 

Went forthwith to the chief priests, saying, '' What 's 
Will ye me give, if I will Him betray ?" 
They bargained thirty shekels* him to pay. 
Taking the silver, with despatch malign, ^^ 

He sought to execute his fell design. 

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bfead, ^^ 

When must the Paschal victim's blood be shed, 
Came His disciples to Him, saying, '' Where 
Wilt Thou that we for Thee the meal prepare 
To eat the Passover T He said to John 
And Peter, " Go ye into the City, one 
Bearing a jar of water, will meet you ; 
Him follow ; where he enters enter too. 
And to the householder in My name say : 
' Where is the guest-chamber, where the Master may 
With His disciples the Passover eat ?' 
And he will show you, furnished and complete, 
A spacious upper room.'' All as He said 
They found, and the Passover ready made. '3 

Evening now come, which was He knew His last,'^ 

* Equal to eighteen dollars, the legal value of a slave if killed by a beast. See 
Zech. xi. 12. 



i8 



Luke 
xxii. ir 



THE PASSOVER MEAL. 2/9 

He sat down with the Twelve to the repast, ^ii — 

And said : " Much have I longed to eat with you v= 

This Passover before I suffer. True 

It is, that I will eat it ne'er again, ^^ 

Till in God's Kingdom I its ends attain, 

And all is finished." He took liquid food, ^7 

Consisting of the crushed grapes' living blood 

Pressed in the cup, and, giving thanks, said, " Take, 

And of it 'mong yourselves division make !" 

Strife about seats at table previously, ^^ 

Renewed debate, which one should greatest be. 
Though they had bathed, their walk since through 

the streets, 
Had, unavoidably, defiled their feet. Ji-I"!! 

Being too proud, 't would seem, to have it known 
They 'd stooped to wash their Master's or their own, 
In disregard of decency, they crouch. 
And soil with dirty feet their Saviour's couch. 
But He, the sinner's Advocate and Friend, ^ 

Loving His own, still loved them to the end. 
And though He knew Himself omnipotent, 3 

That He came forth from God and to God went, 
He rose from supper, stripping,* left the board, -^ 

* The "stripping" would relate to the upper garments, probably the mantle only. 



28o THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

And, with a towel, girt Himself, and poured ^^?^^ 

Water into a basin, and began 

To wash the feet of His disciples, man 

By man ; then, afterwards, to wipe them dry 

With the same towel which He was girded by 

Coming to Peter he objection made : ^ 

" Lord ! washest Thou my feet?" The Master said: 

*' What I am doing thou dost know not now, ^ 

But thou shalt know hereafter." He said : " Thou 

Shalt never wash my feet." " I must wash thee, ^ 

For, otherwise, thou hast no part with Me." 

And Simon Peter answering then said : 9 

" Lord ! not my feet only, but hands and head." 

" He that is bathed has need to do no more ^"^ 

Than wash his feet, for then he 's clean all o'er. 

And ye are clean, but not all." This He said. 

Knowing by whom Himself would be betrayed. " 

So after He had washed their feet, and ta'en '- 

His garments, and at table lay again, 

He said : " Know ye what I have done to you ? 

Ye call Me Lord and Master, and speak true, '3 

For so 1 am. If I do not disdain '"'< 

To wash your feet, to leave example plain, ^5 

Ye ought not, when occasion shall arise. 



WASHES THE DISCIPLES' FEET. 28 1 

Refuse to wash each other's feet, likewise. ^?.^" 

The slave s not greater than his master, nor ^^ 

Is the apostle or ambassador 

Greater than he who sends him. Happy you, ^7 

Who know these things, provided ye them do. 

'' I speak not of you all : I know whom I ^s 

Have chosen, and him, who will verify 
That Scripture, ' He that eateth bread with me, 
His heel hath lifted 'gainst me treacherously.' 
I tell you of this treachery before, 19 

That ye, unstaggered, may beheve the more." 
He sadly spake again : " In truth I say, 20 

The traitor 's present, that shall Me betray. "^ 

The Son of Man goes as of Him 't was said, 
But woe to him by whom He is betrayed." 
They, struck with horror, on each other gaze, 
And one by one cry out in wild amaze : 
'' Lord is it I ?" And Peter beckoned John, =^3 

Leaning his Master's loving bosom on. 
To ask, " Who is it Lord ?" And He said, '' See ^4 
To whom I give this morsel dipped, 't is he." ^^ 

And having dipped the morsel, He it passed ^^ 

To Judas, who had faltered out at last. 



282 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

" Lord is it I ?" To which He answered, '' Yea ! ^^f^^ 
So what thou doest, do without delay." 
John understood and Peter, all beside ""^ 

Thought He had bid him for the feast provide. ^9 

After the morsel had to him been given, 30 

Satan him entered, and, by fury driven. 
He instantly went out, and it was night — 
The Paschal moon had risen full and bright. 
When he was gone — though Jesas knew full well, 31 
It was to consummate his purpose fell — 
He said, forestalling triumph — though foreseen 
Th' unutterable agonies that lay between — 
" The Son of Man 's now glorified and glad 
And God is glorified in Him. Ye 're sad 
With sad forebodings. Little children, I 33 

A little while am with you. By and by, 
Ye 11 seek Me and not find Me. Where I go 
Ye cannot follow while ye live below. 
I give the breadth of My commandment new, 34 

' Ye one another love as I Ve loved you ' — 
To all men your discipleship ye prove, 35 

By mutual helpfulness and mutual love." 

And Peter said : '' Lord, whither goest Thou ?" 36 
" Whither I go, ye cannot follow now," 



PROTESTINGS OF PETER AT SUPPER. 283 

(Was still the Lord's ambiguous reply) ^■9>"_ 

'' But thou shalt follow afterwards." " But why 37 

Cannot I follow now ? I will for Thee 

Lay down my life." Then Jesus said : " All ye ^^i^\ 

Shall stumbled be this night because of Me. 

For 't is written, ' The Shepherd I will smite, 

And all the sheep will safety seek in flight.' 

But when I 'm risen, I will go before 32 

You into Galilee." Then spake once more 33 

Peter : " Though all disown, yet will not L" 

" Before-cock crowing thou 'It Me thrice deny. 34 

Ah ! Simon, Simon, Satan would thee gain, xxi?^i 

And toss and sift thee, as men winnow grain, 

But I have prayed for thee, and answer got, 32 

That though thou fall, yet shall thy faith fail not. 

And when thou art converted, made more meek, 

Strengthen thy brethren, who like thee are weak." 

With greater vehemence did he protest, x^l^ss 

He would not Him deny ; so all the rest. 

Then taking bread, and giving thanks, He brake 
And gave to His disciples, saying, " Take, ^y^^^^ 

Eat, this My body is, that 's broke for you, 
This in commemoration of Me do." 



284 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Luke 
xxii. 20 



I Cor. 
xi. 23 



Matt, 
xxvi. 29 



He took the cup, and blessed it to their use, 
Filled with the living, uncorrupted juice* 
Of the crushed cluster, ' inoffensive must ' — f 
A thing unleavened, worthy of all trust — 
And, as He gave to them the purple food. 
Said : " Drink ye all of it ; this is My blood 
Of the New Covenant for many shed ; 
Remember me in this, as in the bread. 
I ' 11 drink no more the product of the vine. 
Till in God's Kingdom I shall drink new wine.:]: 

John xiv. 1-37 : xv. 1-33— xvii. 1-26 

•' Be ye not troubled in undue degree. 
Belief in God demands belief in Me. 
My Father's house has mansions manifold ; ^ 

If 't were not so, I would you it have told. 
I go for each a dwelling to prepare — 
A house not made with hands, divinely fair, 
A body like my own.|| If I you leave, 3 

*To symbolize a body that " did not see corruption." 

t " For drink, the grape she crushes, inoffensive must."— Paradise Lost, v. 344. 
See Gen. xi. 9-11. 

X See the Evangel, p. 233, note. 

II Before any one rejects this interpretation as fanciful and unauthorized, let him, if 
he will, consider whether it does not suit the context ; and whether it does not har- 
monize with other Scripture. Christ promised His disciples, that, having gone and 
prepared a place for them, He would come again and receive them to Himself, that 



John 
xiv. I 



MANY MANSIONS. 285 

I will return, and to Myself receive, J^J^l 

That where I am, there ye may be also. 
Ye know the whither and the way I go." * 

Said Thomas : " Lord, not knowing what Thou 
know'st, 5 

We neither know the way nor place Thou go'st.' 
He said : " I am the True and Living Way — ^ 

Who goes by other roads, he goes astray. 
Comes no one to the Father but by Me— 
Sole means of access, gloriously free. 
Had ye known Me, ye would, in fact, have known 7 
My Father too, revealed in Me alone. 
Henceforth, ye know ye know Him, and have seen." 
Said Philip : " Lord, without a veil between, ^ 

Show us the Father, and 't will us suffice ; 
We fain would have the witness of ovir eyes.' 

they might be with Him. Did He come ? If so, when ? If He came to them at death, 
He came — according- to Philippians iii. 21 — clothed with omnipotence to fashion them 
a body like unto His own glorious body. Manifestly, it were not a full salvation, 
" without the redemption of the body.' " The house we live in " below, is the body 
of flesh, wonderful beyond everything we know. And we can conceive of no "man- 
sion" that our ascended Lord could prepare for us even in heaven so desirable, as an 
immortal body suited to the needs of the immortal spirit. We feel quite sure that 
there is no substitute for it in the whole universe. 

Another thought. The Lord's Supper, just instituted, symbolizes divine assimila- 
tions. By a believing apprehension and appropriation of Christ we are changed into 
the same image. He is our aliment. Our springs of life are in Him. Through Him 
" The inner man is renewed day by day." May we not assume, that there is some 
reference here to jthe spiritual body, which is essential to the completeness of our per- 
sonality as the sons of God? 



286 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

" Have I with you so long time, Philip, been, /j°^" 
And dost thou not Me know ? Who hath Me seen, 
Hath seen the Father— immanent is He, ^° 

Speaking and working evermore in Me. " 

He that believes on Me, the works I do ^^ 

He shall do also, yea, and greater too. 
Because I go unto the Father, I 
Enabling might will give you from on high. 
Under Truth's banners everywhere unfurled, 
To conquer nations and convert the world. 
Then all ye ask in My name shall be done — '4 

The Father thus be honored in the Son. 

" If ye love Me, ye ' 11 My commandments keep, 's 
And out of darkness, light shall upward leap ; 
And I will pray the Father you to send '^ 

Another Helper, Advocate and Friend, 
That He may be with you forever, even 
The Spirit of Truth, supremest Gift of Heaven. '7 

" I will not leave you orphans without home. 
Bereaved and desolate, but to you come : 
My Father will you love, and come as well. 
And We will both together with you dwell. 
These things I ' ve spoken to you while I 'm here : 
But He, the Comforter, your hearts will cheer — 



iS 



CLOSING BENEDICTION. 28/ 

The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will ^^^'^"g 

Send in My name, His office to fulfill — 

To teach you, and to your remembrance bring 

Of all I ' ve said to you, each needful thing. 

And now, Farewell ! receive My fond adieu ! 

Peace I leave with you ; My peace give to you. =7 

Not as the world I give, words lightly spoke, 

But peace immortal on your heads invoke. 

Let not your heart be troubled or dismayed, 

I go away, but not to stay I said. 

Ye should be glad I to My Father go, ^« 

For He is greater than I am below. 

" I am the Vine, the heavenly and the true : 
My Father is the Husbandman, and you 
The branches are. Each barren branch in Me 
He lops off, and each branch that 's fruitful, He, 
By pruning, cleanses, so that it may bear 
More fruit. Clean through My spoken word ye are. 
Abide in Me, and I '11 in you abide. 
For as the branch cannot its life divide 
From the main vine, and of itself bear fruit, 
Neither can ye, apart from Me, the Root, 
Do anything. He who is joined to Me, 
And shares My life, bears fruit abundantly. 



John 

XV. I 



288 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

The branch that has that vital oneness lost, j[°^^ 

Lopped from the Vine, into the fire is tost. 
Ye by much fruit the Father glorify, s 

And My disciples prove yourselves thereby. 

" E'en as the Father has loved Me, I you 9 

Have loved, although no love whatever was due. 
Would ye not alienate this love immense, ^° 

Abide in love and in obedience. 

I have addressed to you these counsels plain, " 

That so My joy in you may aye remain, 
And that your joy in love may be complete — 
Fraternal loves and fellowships are sweet. ^^ 

No one a greater love than this can show, 
To lay down life to save a friend or foe. 
* * -jf * * 

'' I tell you truly, it is for your good 
That I depart — the Paraclete else would 
Not come to you, But if I go away, 
1 11 send you Him to dwell with yon and stay. 
And when He comes, your Heavenly Helper, He 
Will mouth and wisdom and conviction be — 
Convince the world of Sin— of sins the chief, 
Th' unpardonable sin of unbelief: 
Of Righteousness — of which to meet the need, 



XVI. 7 



PROMISE OF THE COMFORTER. 289 

My finished work 1 11 'fore My Father plead : J^l^"_ 
Of Judgment — for earth's prince is judged — his reign " 
O'er souls redeemed destroyed, and broke his chain. 

'' I ' ve many things to say to you, but ye ^^ 

Cannot at present bear them. But when He, ^3 

The Spirit of Truth, is come, He will you lead 
Into all truth ; for His word will proceed. 
Not from Himself alone, from Me apart, 
But be th ' unspoken utterance of My heart. 
He will Me glorify, for He will take ^+ 

Of Mine, and will full revelation make 
Of all I said to you while with you here, 
Authenticate, complete, and make all clear ; 
And He to you will things to come make known — 's 
Divine disclosures of the Eternal Throne." 



Come, Holy Spirit, be my Guest ! 
Prepare a welcome in my breast ! 
Unbar the portals, swing them wide. 
Enter, My Maker, and abide ! 

Come in, there evermore to stay 1 
Nor let my sins drive Thee awayl 



19 



290 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Alas for me, should I Thee grieve, 
And Thou, offended, shouldst me leave. 

Alike, Thou dwellest in the height. 
And hearts made humble and contrite : 
Open my eyes myself to see, 
And clothe me with humility I 

Sweet Comforter ! Eternal Friend ! 
Be my companion to the end : 
And work in me to will and do, 
Whate'er is pleasing, good and true. 

Take of the things of Christ, and show 
What it concerns me most to know, 
And make me victor over sin. 
That I on earth may heaven begin ! 



* ^ w -;r * 

*^ A woman has in travail sorrow, yet ^^^i^" 

A mother's joy makes her her pangs forget. 
And so ye now, because I leave you, mourn, ^ 

But when ye see Me from the grave reborn, 
Ye shall rejoice, and no one shall deprive 



INTERCESSORY PRAYER. 2QI 

You of your joy, at sio^ht of Me alive. John 

^ xvi. 23 

Then all your doubts and questionings shall cease, 

And ye 11 enjoy a calm believing peace. 

And what ye ask the Father, in My name, 

He will be sure to freely give the same. 

Ye have asked naught in My name hitherto. ^4 

Ask, and He '11 pour His fullness out to you. 

•X- * -X- -Jf 4j 

I speak thus, that in Me ye may have peace : 33 

Though in the world, your conflict shall ne'er cease. 
Be of good cheer, I 've overcome, and ye, 
Likewise, shall overcome the world through Me." 



Having tjius spoke, He lifted up His eyes, 
And prayed and interceded in this wise : 

" Father ! the hour is come for Me to die. 
Foreseen through all the ages. Glorify 
Thy Son in His humiliation, when 
For the redemption of the sons of men, 
Thou mak'st His soul an offering for sin. 
To everlasting righteousness bring in, 
That so the Son may glorify Thee too, 

To whom the honor and the praise are due 

Being endowed by Thee with power afresh. 



XV U. I 



2^2 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Right and authority, high o'er all flesh, xi?L — 

To give to them, whom Thou to Him hast given. 
Eternal life and happiness in heaven. 

** Now this is life eternal, Thee to know, 3 

And Jesus Christ, Thy Messenger below. 
I have Thee glorified here from My birth, "^ 

And finished have Thy work upon the earth. 
Now, with that glory glorify Thou Me, 5 

I had with Thee from all eternity ! 
As I depart, and to Thy bosom go, 
I pray for these bereaved ones left below. 9 

" O Holy Father ! keep them in Thy name ! " 

May they be one, as we are ! Save from blame ! 
And by Thy Truth them wholly sanctify — '7 

Thy Word is truth, unmingled with a lie. 
As Thou sent'st Me into the world, I send '^ 

Them, My Apostles, forth to the world's end. 
Nor for these only is My prayer preferred, ^° 

But for those also, who shall through their word 
Believe on Me, that so they all may be ^' 

In Us, as Thou in Me, and I in Thee. 
Father ! I will, that all Thou Me hast given, ^^ 

May with Me be, when throned with Thee in heaven, 



THEY SUNG A HYMN. 

That forasmuch, as they My likeness bear, 
I in them being, they may with Me share 
The love, wherewith Thou lovedst Me before 
The world's foundations, since and evermore." 



293 



HYMN. 

Ever, My Lord, with Thee, 

Ever with Thee ! 
Through all eternity 

Thy face to see ! 
I count this heaven, to be 
Ever, my Lord, with Thee, 

Ever with Thee ! 

Fair is Jerusalem, 

All of pure gold. 
Garnished with many a gem 

Of worth untold : 
I only ask, to be 
Ever, My Lord, with Thee, 

Ever with Thee ! 



294 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

River of Life there flows 

As crystal clear ; 
The Tree of Life there grows 

For healing near : 
But this crowns all, to be 
Ever, my Lord, with Thee, 

Ever with Thee ! 

No curse is there, no night, 

No grief, no fear ; 
Thy smile fills heaven with light, 

Dries every tear : 
What rapture, there to be 
Ever, my Lord, with Thee, 

Ever with Thee ! 



GETHSEMANE. 



295 



XXII. 

BETRAYAL, TRIAL, AND SENTENCE. 

Matt. xxvi. 30-68; Mark xiv. 26-65; Luke xxii. 39-71; John xviii. 1-24. 

^r^HEY, having sung a Hymn, went out. And soon 
J- Under the light of the Passover moon— xx\^i"3o 
Leaving the City by the eastern gate, 
Not closed throughout the Feast, however late — 
Passed the brook Kedron to (where used to be) 
A quiet Garden, called Gethsemane, 36 

Upon the wooded slope of Olivet, 
Where He had oft with His disciples met, xviir2 

Well known to Judas. He, addressing all ^^^^^^ 

Of His disciples, said : '' Pray, that ye fall 
Not through temptation ! " Going farther on, 
And taking with Him Peter, James and John, xfvflj 
He to the others said : " Sit here, while I 
Pray yonder." Then 'gan a strange agony. 38 

Struck with amaze, He said, with gasping breath, 
" My soul is compassed with the pangs of death. 
Stay here, and watch ! " Proceeding a short space, 39 



296 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

A stone's throw further, He fell on His face, x^vf- 

And prayed : " Father, if it be possible, 

Let this cup pass from Me ! but, if not, well : 

Not what I will, but what Thou wilt be done — 

Obedient unto death will be Thy Son." 

Then He returned, and finding them asleep, 40 

He said to Peter : " Simon, couldst thou keep 
Not watch with Me one hour? Watch ye and pray, ^^ 
Lest your frail hearts your tempted feet betray : 
Strength to resist temptation humbly seek, 
The spirit 's willing but the flesh is weak." 
ITe went away the second time. Again, ^^>;^ 

He, in an agony of grief and pain. 
Prayed yet more earnestly ; and, lo, His sweat 
Was like great drops of blood, that, falling, wet 
Th' astonished ground. As on the shuddering air 
His pallid lips flung out the bitter prayer. 
Appeared to Him a messenger from heaven ; 
And to His fainting heart fresh strength was given. 



Matt. 
.XXV.42 



Then going back once more, again He found 
The three all fast asleep upon the ground, 
For that their eyes were heavy. He withdrew, « 
And uttered the same doleful words anew : 



THE KISS OF BETRAYAL. 



297 



*' Father ! if this unutterable cup x^v.^44 

May not pass from Me, I will drink it up : 

Though red and full of mixture, drugged with pain, 

I to the dregs will expiation drain. 

I draw not back. Fulfilled be in the Son ! 

I mean to finish what I have begun. 

He rose and His disciples now addressed : ^^ 

'' Ye need not watch. Sleep on and take your rest — 
Vigils are useless. Not your drowsy eyes 
Can more avail to guard against surprise. 
The hour is come, and cannot be delayed. 
The Son of Man, already, is betrayed 
Into the hands of sinners. Let us go ! ^6 

I am prepared to meet th' approaching foe." 

While He yet spake, was seen a numerous band 47 
With lanterns, swords, and staves, now close at hand. 
From the chief priests and scribes and elders sent. 
Guided by Judas, who before them went, 
Having a sign them given, saying : " See ^^ 

Whom I shall kiss. Him seize ; the same is He." 
As he draws near Him, he, advancing, saith : '♦^ 

" Hail Master !" and Him kisses with vile breath. 
And Jesus says, " Friend ! Judas ! how is this ? so 

The Son of Man betray 'st thou with a kiss ?" xu"48 



298 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

He, knowing all things that before Him lay — ^J.'j'Jl" 
All signs of His late struggle passed away — 
Steps calmly forth. Exposed to view He stands — 
The God-like One — and with firm voice demands, 
" Whom seek ye?" They give faltering reply : 5 

'' Jesus of Nazareth." He answers, *' I 
Am He." They, struck with awe profound, ^ 

Go backward, and in heaps fall to the ground. 
Recovered soon, and risen to their feet. 
Again He asks : '' Whom seek ye ?" They repeat : 7 
'' Jesus of Nazareth." '' I said, I 'm He. « 

Therefore, if Me ye seek, let these^ go free." 



Matt. 
xxvi. 50 



Him, having seized, they bound fast with a cord. 
Impetuous Peter drew at once a sword, 51 

And smote the high priest's servant standing near, 
And, as it happened, cut off his right ear. 
Then Jesus said to him : "■ Put up thy sword ! ^~ 

Back to its scabbard let it be restored ! 
Who takes shall perish by it. Thinkest thou, 53 

I cannot pray unto My Father now. 
And He will of His angels forthwith send 
More than twelve legions Me here to defend ? 

* How touching, this mindfulness of His disciples ! 



THE ARREST. 



299 



Matt. 



But how should then (if I My rescue willed) ^^,.j .^ 

Th' imperatives of Scripture be fulfilled, 

That say, it must thus be ? Back shall I shrink, Jf^^,, 

And not the cup My Father gives Me drink?" 

And Jesus touched the wounded ear, and said : J;:^^^^ 

** Suffer thus far !" and restoration made. 

Then to the chief priests and the elders — who 52 

Had joined the forces of the Temple to 

The Roman cohort, to remove all doubt 

About th' arrest — He said : " Are ye come out, 

As 'gainst a robber, with a dread array 

Of swords and clubs ? I, teaching, day by day, 53 

Sat in the Temple. This, your hour of might, 

And domination of the powers of night, 

Is a permitted triumph, to fulfil 

The Scriptures that declare Jehovah's will." ^J^f ^^^ 

Then all th' Eleven Him forsook and fled. 



They, to the high priest's house, their captive led, 
Where all the chief priests, scribes and elders were 
Assembled, in night session, to confer. 
By what pretence of crime 'gainst Cassar, they 
His death could compass on the coming day — 
Resolved, that innocence should be no bar. 



57 



300 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Peter and John had followed Him afar. xvm."- 

Admittance unto John was not denied, 

He being known, but Peter stood outside : ^^ 

Wherefore, John spake to her who kept the port, 

And brought in Peter to the inner Court, 

Where all rooms opened. Looking through a door, 

He could see Jesus. As he sat before ^^^^^ 

The fire, among the servants, being cold, 

A maid of the high priest, him eyeing, told ^^ 

Him threat'ningly : " Thou, also, wast with this ^7 

Jesus of Nazareth." He said : " I wis ^^ 

Not what thou sayest." And the cock then crew. 

Later, another maid him charged anew, ^ 

Saying, " This is one of them.** He denied, x^vf^ 

A second time, and with an oath beside, 

Declaring, '' I know not the man." About 

An hour from this, one said : " Thou art, no doubt, 73 

Of Galilee, and one of them ; beside 

I saw thee in the Garden." He denied. 

The third time, and began to curse and swear : 

'' I know Him not, and do not for Him care." 

While he was speaking, the cock crew again, 

And the Lord turned, and looked on Peter. Then ^^^^ 

He called to mind His words : " Ere twice 



MIDNIGHT SESSION OF THE SANHEDRIM. 301 

The cock shall crow, thou wilt deny Me thrice." 
And, as he thought thereon, his breast, storm swept. 
Heaved like a sea, and he went forth and wept. 

'T WAS after midnight, when they reached the gate. 
While Love kept drowsy watch, unsleeping Hate 
Unbroken vigils kept. No eye was dim 
Of those dark plotters of the Sanhedrim, 
Informally convened — a hostile part, 
All of one mind, without a wavering heart — 
Sentence of death intending to report. 
When should, at daybreak, meet the entire Court. 
The high priest Caiaphas, in turbaned pride. 
Sat in the middle, and, on either side 
The other judges in a semicirque, 
Impatient to complete* their bloody work. 
So well begun. It was a welcoape sight, 
Jesus, their dread, a prisoner that night. 

Composed and calm. He stood before them then, 
The Judge of judges, to be judged of men. 
They could not help but feel a guilty shame, 
And half allow the justice of His claim, 
As, unabashed, He scanned each scowling face, 
And showed of terror not the slightest trace. 



302 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

E'en the high priest, a haughty Sadducee, 

Was forced to own the power of purity. 

But the trained worldhng his misgivings masked, 

And, with imperious looks, Him fiercely asked xvu?" 

Concerning His disciples, and His claims, 

The nature of His doctrine, and His aims. 

And what it meant. His publishing abroad 

Th' immediate Coming of the Reign of God, 

Calling Himself the Son of Man, and so 

Hailed as Messiah a few days ago. 

Jesus him answered : " I spake, day by day, ~° 

Openly to the world. I taught alway 
In public places where the Jews resort, 
Temple and Synagogue. Let them report ^^ 

Who heard Me what I said. In secret I 
Have spoken nothing." And one standing by ^^ 

Him forthwith striilk upon the mouth, and said, 
'' Answerest Thou the high priest so?" He made ^3 
Mild answer : " If T 've spoken what 's untrue. 
Bear witness to th' untruth — this thou may'st do — 
But if I 've nothing said but what is right, 
Why dost thou Me thus violently smite ? " 

Left in the keeping of the Temple guard — ^^^^^ 
Fieret'te^^^^ bigots, pitiless and hard — 



BEFORE THE SANHEDRIM. 303 

With fist, with open hand, with stick and rod, ^^^^^e 

They cuffed and smote the patient Son of God. 

Buffet and blow fell on that sacred head ; 

And, while blindfolded, '' Prophesy " (they said, ^ 

In brutal mockery and cruel sport) 

" Who struck Thee then." Provoked to no retort, 

He gave His back to the fierce smiters there ; ^^j^'J^ 

His cheek to them that plucked off the hair ; 

From shame and spittle did not hide His face ; 

But meekly bore all outrage and disgrace. 

As soon as it was day, they Jesus brought ^^^^^^ 

Into the Council, and false witness sought ^J^J" 

To bring against Him to put Him to death. 
But they found none. In spite of venal breath, 56 

And subornation of foul perjury, 
In no case did two witnesses agi;ee. 
When two false witnesses, at last, arose, 57 

They differed still, when called on to depose, 58 

Concerning words which they heard Him employ — 
Declaring, as one said, ^' I ca/i destroy 
This Temple " ; saying, th' other witness swore, 
** I wi// destroy this Temple, and restore 
It without hands within three days complete." 



304 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Again they suffered failure and defeat. ^^f""^ 

Something was wanting to make out a case, 59 

More than this proof, discordant on its face. 

So the high priest, upstarting from his couch, ^° 

Said, angrily : " What is it these avouch 

And charge against Thee ? Answerest Thou naught ? " 

But Jesus held His peace. To fury wrought, 

He said, '' I, by the Living God, adjure ^^^^^^\, 

Thee under oath, to tell us, and assure, 

Whether Thou be the Christ, God's Son or no? " 

And Jesus thus adjured, said : " I am so. ^+ 

Hereafter, ye shall see the Son of Man, 

Sitting on the right hand of Power, and scan 

His dreadful coming in the clouds of heaven. 

With well-feigned horror, and with vestments riven, ^5 

The high priest said : " What further need have we 

Of witnesses ? We Ve heard His blasphemy. 

What think ye ? " And all gave it as their sense, ^^ 

He 's guilty of a capital offence. 

Not having power to put to death. Him they xvfn."s 
Led bound, and under a strong guard, away 
To the Pretorium. To enter it 
Would be defilement, and make them unfit 



JESUS IS BROUGHT BEFORE PILATE. 305 

To eat the Passover — so stayed outside. xvHi"— 

An early audience was not denied. • 29 

Pilate, the procurator, going out, 
Began to ask th' authorities about 
The man's offence. They gruffly said : *' If He 30 
Were not a malefactor, why should we 
Deliver Him to thee ? " He, when he saw 
They quibbled, said: ''Take, judge Him by your 
law ! " 3^ 

They said : " He under it death meriteth. 
But we 've no right to put a man to death" — 
The words of Jesus thus to verify, 3^ 

Telling what kind of death He was to die.* 



Luke 
xxiii. 2 



They charged Him then with criminal intent 
To overturn the Roman Government ; 
Sowing sedition ; leading minds astray ; 
Bidding the people not to tribute pay 
To Caesar, claiming that Himself was King, 3 

Their Christ, who would deliverance them bring. 

Pilate withdrew into the Judgment Hall, xMi^s 

And Jesus there, obedient to his call, 
Was brought, that he might question Him, apart 

* Crucifixion was a Roman punishment. 
20 



3o6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

From His accusers. " So," he said ; '' Thou art xvHi! - 
King of the Jews?" He answered : " In good faith,34 
Is this what thou say'st ? or another saith ? " 
'' Am I a Jew ? " replied he, scornfully, 3s 

'' The chief priests have delivered Thee to me. 
What hast Thou done?" Spake the Supreme of 
Men : ^6 

" My Kingdom is not of this world, for then 
I armed adherents* aid would not refuse, 
To save Me from the vengeance of the Jews. 
But now My Kingdom 's not an earthly thing." 
'' Thou art then," Pilate said, '' in fact a King? " 37 
" Thou speakest truly — King, in fact and name — 
I to this end was born, I for this came 
Into the world, to reign and witness here 
Unto the Truth. All to My voice give ear 
Who 're of the Truth. My loyal subjects they, 
Who hear the Truth, and hearing it obey." 
*' But what is Truth ?— Philosophy's despair." 3^ 

Tossing the question on th' unanswering air, 
Pilate went out again, and said : '' I find 39 

No fault in Him." They then, with desperate 

• J Mark 

mmd, XV. 3 



PILATE SENDS HIM TO HEROD. ' 307 

Charged Him with many things. When He said 
naught— ' i^"*^ 

But as a lamb, that 's to the slaughter brought ; 
A sheep, that 's dumb before her shearers, so 
Not opening His mouth, in patient woe — 
Knowing the uselessness of all defense, 
Pilate much marvelled at His reticence. 5 



When he persisted in affirming still, 
*' I find no fault in Him" — more fierce to kill, 
They sought to brand Him as a dangerous pest, 
Exciting insurrection without rest. 
Teaching throughout all Jewry, the whole space 
From Galilee, they said, unto this place. 

No sooner mention did they Galilee, 
Than Pilate caught at it, and asked, if He 
A Galilean was ? And, when he found, 
It Herod's jurisdiction was and ground 
To which He properly belonged, he sent 
Jesus to Herod, who, by accident, 
Was also at Jerusalem just then — 
Come to attend the Passover. And when 
He Jesus saw, he was exceeding glad ; 
Because, for a long season, he had had 



Luke 
xxiii. 4 



Luke 
X-xiii. — 



^Qg THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

A great desire to see Him, having heard 
Of many things accomplished by His word, 
And hoped to see some miracle now wrought. 
In vain he questioned Him, He answered naught. 9 
The chief priests and the scribes, with might and 
main, ''^ 

Renewed, and pressed their calumnies again. 

But Herod, too astute to be betrayed 
Into th' acceptance of their wild tirade — 
Knowing that what they vehemently averred 
Was mostly false, malicious and absurd ; 
Himself acquainted with Him, by report, 
And marvellings of men of his own court f 
Not fearing Him, as dangerous to the State, 
But well advised His following was great ; 
Taught by experience, in the case of John 
Whom he beheaded, there were risks to run- 
Though flattered by the compHment him paid, 
Whereby with Pilate he was friendly made, 
True to his foxy nature, took good care 
That he was caught not in the Roman's snare. 

* Herod had heard of His miracles (Matt. xiv. i) ; Manaen (Acts xiii. i) his foster 
brother, was one of the prophets and teachers in the church of Antioch , and Johanna, 
the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward (Luke viii. 3) was one of those devoted v/omen 
who ministered to Jesus of their substance. 



PILATE WISHES TO RELEASE HIM. 309 

Though he cared not the innocent should bleed, x]d?-_ 

He 'd shun the needless odium of the deed. 

While making ready Jesus back to send, " 

Supposing it Avould better him commend 

To the fierce priesthood (strange such monsters are), 

He laughing part took with his men of war 

In making vulgar sport — like cruel boys, 

Paying mock homage, with grimace and noise, 

As to a king, what time they tricked Him out 

With a white robe to wear upon the route. 

Pilate, disposed to save Him if he could, '3 

Let his ' I dare not ' wait upon ' I would,' 
Unjust demands unable to refuse. 
Th' authorities and people of the Jews 
Again he summons, and again affirms '4 

His innocence, in most emphatic terms : 
" You charge Him with exciting to revolt ; 
Touching this crime, I find Him without fault. 
And Herod, too, to whom I you referred, ^5 

Has in this judgment tacitly concurred. 
Having chastised Him, He shall be released, ^6 

Custom requiring, I should at this Feast »7 

Surrender you a prisoner. Do you choose, ^^'"'^ 



XV. 9 



3IO 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



That I release to you King of the Jews ? — " 
He knowing very well the Sanhedrim 
Out of sheer envy had delivered Him. 

They said, with cries and shouts that did not cease, 
'' Away with this man ! and to us release xxhlis 

Barabbas ! " Now, Barabbas lay fast bound "^ 

For murder and sedition — dangerous found, 
A restless zealot, born of troublous times, 
Of bad repute because of other crimes. 
" What shall I do, since you Barabbas choose, ^J,^,^ 
With Him ye designate King of the Jews? " 
And they cried out again : " Him crucify ! " '^ 

Once more th' unwilling governor said, " Why ? 
What evil has He done ? I have not found '+ 

Just cause of death on which to sentence ground." 



Outside of the Pretorium, or Hall 
Of Judgment, was a place they used to call 
The Pavement, but in Hebrew Gabbatha, 
Where, in the open air and light of day. 
Trials might be conducted. Pilate there 
For judgment sat, in his high curule chair, 
When his wife Procla warning whisper sent, 
An unjust condemnation to prevent. 



Matt. 
xxvii. 19 



xxn 12 



Matt, 
xxvii. 20 



24 



PILATE REAFFIRMS HIS INNOCENCE. 311 

Saving : *' Yield not ! stand firm ! have naught to do 
With that just man ! lest my day's dream come true." 
But bulls of Bashan, the priest-goaded crowd, ^^^^"'^ 
Ceased not their bellowings — with voices loud, 
And urgent clamor growing more and more. 
The chief priests leading in the wild uproar, 
They shouted the demand in Pilate's ear : 
*' Him crucify ! Him crucify ! " until in fear. 
He weakly but reluctantly complied, 
And sentence gave He should be crucified. 
Washing his hands before the multiude. 
He told them : " I am guiltless of the blood 
Of this just man. See ye to it." They said : 
" His blood be on ours and our children's head." 



So he released to them Barabbas. When =^ 

His soldiers had scourged Jesus, they again 
Led Him inside of the Pretorium, "7 

And, w^hen their whole band had together come,^ 
Stripped Him ; clothed Him with purple ; platted 

now 
A thorny crown to mock His bleedmg brow ; =^9 

A reed put in His hand ; in mimicry 
Of worship paid to sovereigns, bowed the knee ; 



25 



312 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Saluting Him, said : " Hail, King of the Jews !" ^x^g*!. 
Then spat on Him ; and took the reed to use 30 

In smiting Him upon the head and face, 
And heaped on Him all manner of disgrace. 



Pilate went forth again, and said to them : 
" I bring Him forth I without cause condemn." 



John 
xix. 4 



Pale, haggard, bleeding, tottering and forlorn, 
Wearing the purple robe and wreathing thorn, 
Jesus came forth — the warm blood shuddering ran, 
While Pilate, pointing, said : " Behold the Man ! " 
Chief priests and underlings, a barking crowd, 
Th' assembly of the wicked, yelping loud, 
At sight of Him sent up the th' impatient cry, 
Unceasing, '^ Crucify ! Him Crucify ! " 
Then Pilate said : " Since ye refuse to halt, 
Ye take and crucify, for I no fault 
Have found in Him against the Roman laws." 
The Jews replied : " Under our law, because 
He made Himself the Son of God, have we 
Doomed Him to death for guilt of blasphemy." 

When Pilate heard this, he was more afraid. 
The superhuman patience He displayed. 
His more than mortal majesty of mien. 



313 

Johxi 
xix. — 



PILATE YIELDS AND PASSES SENTENCE. 

Transcending all that he had ever seen, 

Filled him with dread misgivings, fortified 

By his wife's dream and warning words beside. 

Who is He ? this mysterious silent One, 

Claiming the awful title of God's Son. 

He feared the Jews, but then to brave the curse 

And wrath of the immortal gods were worse. 

So, going back to the Pretorium, 9 

He said to Jesus : " Whence art Thou ? " When 

dumb. 
Yielding no answer, Pilate said : " Dost Thou '« 

Not speak to me ? Dost Thou not know^ that now 
I 've power to crucify Thee or set free ? " 
He said : " Thou couldst no power have over Me " 
Unless Heaven-given. Who did this wrong begin, 
And Me delivered, has the greater sin." 

Pilate sought thenceforth to release Him, " No !" '^ 
The Jews cried out. '' If thou let this Man go 
Thou art not Caesar's friend. Who claims to be 
A King, he strikes at his authority." 

When Pilate heard these words, not sure about /-^^^ 

^ XIX. 13 

His own position, he brought Jesus out. 

The hour was nine. Intending it to sting, ** 

He said unto the Jews, " Behold your King ! " 



SH 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



" Away with Him ! away with Him ! " they cry — 

*' Him crucify ! '' He said : '' What ! crucify 

Your King ? " '' We have no King," chief priests 

rephed, 
" But Cassar." He the doom then ratified. 

Motives, that Judas moved, soon spent their force, 
When followed an intolerable remorse. x^vii!* 

No sooner had the dreadful deed been done, 
Than, like the utter quenching of the Sun, 
The blackness of a darkness round him fell 
Out of the bottom of profoundest hell. 
Not power of fire, nor yet the moon's clear light, 
The stars' bright flames, could lighten that dread 

night — 
An earnest of the darkness that shall bind 
With chains perpetual the guilty mind. 
When Conscience wakens who can with her strive ? 
Terrors and troubles from a sick soul drive ? 
Naught so unpitying as the ire of sin, 
The inappeas'ble Nemesis within. 

O thought of horror ! since twelve hours ago. 
He had pulled down eternities of woe. 

The dream of avarice was at an end. 



REMORSE AND SUICIDE OF JUDAS. 315 



Matt. 
xxvii. — 



He had betrayed his loving Lord and Friend 
Lost to all hope, by all the furies driven, 
He heard behind him close the gates of Heaven. 
The world seemed different. A bodeful sound 
Rose from the shuddering, accusing ground. 
Traitor and murderer, the conscious skies 
Looked down with wrathful and reproving eyes. 
By some strange sorcery, all things appeared 
Eldritch, possessed, unnatural and weird. 
Was it a demon's, or his own soul's hiss 
That filled his ears ? so Uke that mortal kiss 
By which he stung his Lord with serpent mouth. 
He felt the burning of a dreadful drouth, 
That dried up all the moisture of the throat- 
Scarce able to articulate a note. 
As in the clutches of a strong despair 
He tried to shape his guilty lips to prayer. 

He saw Him scourged, mocked, spit upon, contemned, 

And as a felon to the Cross condemned. ^ 

And was all this his work ? What should he do ? 

He to the chief priests and the elders flew, 

And throwing down the price, he wildly said : 

" Lo I have sinned, in that I have betrayed ^ 

The Innocent. I your base bribe return." 



3l6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

They said : "What's that to us ? That's your concern." 
Leaving behind Him the accursed pelf ^^l^- 

He in a frenzy went and hanged himself. 

Being the price of blood, the chief priests thought ^ 
It would defile the treasury, so bought 
The potter's field to bury strangers in 7 

With the nefarious reward of sin. 
Wherefore the field was called Aceldama, ^ 

The Field of Blood, and is so to this day. 



JESUS LED TO CRUCIFIXION. 317 



XXIII. 

THE CRUCIFIXION. 

Matt, xxvii. 31-66 ; Mark xv. 20-47 \ Luke xxiii. 33-56 ; John xix. 28-42. 

TIRED of the sport, their cruel mockings o'er, 
They doff His robes, and His own clothes restore. . 
Then lead away, weighed down with His own cross, 
Jesus to crucifixion. Faint with loss xft^^^ 

Of blood, and His long agony, He fell 
Beneath the load. They, thereupon, compel xtSile 
One Simon, a Cyrenian, to bear 

His cross behind Him, while close followed there ^7 
A crowd of people and of women, who 
With wailings loud His painful steps pursue. 
He, turning round, said to them tenderly : =^ 

" Ye daughters of Jerusalem weep not for Me. 
Weep for yourselves, and for your children. Yea, 
The time is coming in which they will say, *9 

* Happy the barren wombs that never bore, 
And breasts that ne'er gave suck ;' and will implore 3° 
The mountains to fall on them, and the hills 



3l8 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

To cover them from unexampled ills. xim^- 

Your rulers are triumphant and elate, 

That they have slain the object of their hate. 

But to reject their promised Christ and King, 

Then slay Him is a dark and dreadful thing. 

The wickedness that did this sin contrive, 3^ 

Is green and flourishing, and, while alive, 

Will grow each year to more and more, until 

The bound is reached and limit of God's will ; 

Then the tree 's dry and bending boughs shall rain 

O'er the doomed land full recompense of pain." 

By the same band to execution led 32 

Two malefactors Him accompanied. 
Come to the place called Golgotha, a Skull, ^^f^ 

Outside the gate, they first, His pains to dull. 
Gave Him to drink wine, drugged with myrrh* — 
but He 23 

Preferred to bear th' unsoftened agony. 

*As myrrh does not of itself possess any anodyne properties, it may have been used 
as a mere fiavorer to disguise the taste of some other drug- — possibly, M.mdragora 
which is said to have been employed by the ancients as an anaesthetic in surgical op- 
erations — in the same way as Chloroform, and other like agents are now. Mandra- 
gora ( Mandrake ) is allied to Belladonna, botanically and medicinally, and is said to 
be even more powerfully narcotic. Its root, which is large, is divided into two or 
three forks, giving it some resemblance to the human body ; whence rose, probably, the 
superstition, that it was endowed with animal feelings ; and the fabulous stories of its 



HE IS NAILED TO THE CROSS. 319 

T was the third hour when He was crucified, ^^^^^ 
The two thieves with Him placed on either side, ^7 
Fulfilling Scripture, which had in the past ^^ 

Foretold He with transgressors should be classed. 
They pierced His hands and feet with cruel steel, j^^Ht^^ 
That had been only used to bless and heal. 
And Jesus said, as they the nails drove tlirough, 
" Father, forgive ! They know not what they do." 

Taking the outer garments Jesus wore, ^^"l^ 

These the four soldiers parted into four ; 
But for one tunic, seamless and entire, ^'^ 

uttering shrieks when torn from the earth. Shakespeare, in several places, alludes to 
this plant. As when Banquo in Macbeth ^ says : 

" Or have we eaten of the insane root 
That takes the reason prisoner." 

Again in Anthony and Cleopatra : 

" Give me to drink mandragora." 
Also in Othello: 

" Not poppy, nor mandragora, 

Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world 

Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 

Which thou ow'dst yesterday." 

In Romeo and Juliet^ there is an allusion to it in another aspect : 

" And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth 
That living mortals hearing them run mad." 

It was potent in all kinds of enchantment, and is supposed to have been the same as 
the magical herb Boaras, said to cure demoniacs ; and was procured at great risk by 
the death of the dog employed to pull it up. Josephus, B. J. vii. 6, § 3. That it might 
have been found curative in cases of Epilepsy, mistaken for demoniacal possession, 
is rendered probable by the fact, that Belladonna has been regarded by some as a 
specific in Epilepsy. 



320 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



John 
xix. — 



They all cast lots, as they did not desire 

To tear it. Scripture thus was verified, 

' My garments they among them did divide ; 

They cast lots on My vesture.* Pilate wrote '^ 

A title o'er His head, so all might note : 

* This Jesus is, King of the Jews ' — displayed 

In Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Murmuring, said '^'^ 

The chief priests then to Pilate : " Rather use -' 

The words, He said I King am of the Jews, 

Not that He is." But Pilate answered, '' No ! 

What I have written I have written. Go ! " 

The people stood beholding. Passing by, x^f"'39 
Some rail and wag their heads, and, taunting, cry, *° 
'' Thou Who the Temple dost destroy, and dost, 
In three days, it rebuild, make good thy boast ! 
Now save Thyself, and come down from the cross." 
The rulers, likewise, stooped their gibes to toss : '♦' 
" Let Christ, the King of Israel, descend ! 
He claimed He others saved, but, in the end, ^ 

He cannot save Himself. God's will be done ! ^3 

Let God deliver, if He will. His Son." 

One of the malefactors blasphemed thus : ^1X^39 

" If Thou be Christ, now save Thyself and us ! " 



THE PENITENT THIEF. 



321 



The other him rebuked : '' Hast thou no fear J-^}^"^ 

Of God, before whom thou wilt soon appear, 

Since thou in the same condemnation art ? 

We suffer justly, merited the smart, 41 

The due reward of our misdeeds ; but this, 

The murdered Christ, has nothing done amiss." 

He spake to Jesus : '* Lord ! remember me, -♦^ 

When in Thy Kingdom Thou enthroned shalt be.' 

" Thou shalt to-day," He from the cross replies, ^3 

" Be verily with Me in Paradise." 

His mother and His mother's sister stood x-S!"s 

With Mary Magdalene beside the wood 

On which He hung. When Jesus saw, therefore, =^ 

His mother desolate and weeping sore. 

And, standing by. His loved disciple John, 

He said unto her: " Woman ! see thy son." 

Then said to him : " Thy mother see ! " And the}^ ^7 

Maintained that dear relation from that day. 



'T was night at noonday. Over all the land 
Brooded a darkness, none could understand. 
Hiding His person with a decorous shroud 
From the coarse vision of the scoffing cro\yd. 
The sun was darkened, but without eclipse, 
A frown of Nature hushing impious lips — 



Matt, 
xxvii. 45 



21 



322 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

A preternatural, Egyptian gloom, xi^u"— 

Prophetic of the day of final doom. 

After three hours, or the ninth hour about, "^^ 

From Jesus' lips the anguished cry rang out : 

'' Eli ! Eli ! lama sabacthani ! " 

My God ! Oh why hast thou forsaken Me ? 

Some said : " He for Elijah calls. Let be, 47 

Whether he '11 come to save Him we will see." 

And Jesus spake again : " I thirst." Straightway, +^ 

One wet a sponge with vinegar, and lay 

It on His lips, which opening now to speak. 

Cried : " It is finished ! " followed by a shriek ^{^^^ 

As His heart broke,^ and, through the fatal rent, xxiH^46 

The spirting life blood found unnatural vent. 

* The opinion that the immediate physical cause of death in our Lord was Rupture 
of the Heart, derives much support from the facts of the case so far as recorded. The 
cry or shriek which immediately preceded His "giving up the ghost" may have been 
due to a violent spasm of the organ, causing the rupture. The Heart is enclosed in a 
shut sac, called the Pericardium, which is sometimes the seat of a dropsical effusion, 
filling it up and distending it to that degree that the Heart has no room to act. In case 
of Rupture of the Heart, the contraction which should drive the blood into the arteries, 
forces it into the Pericardium, filling and distending it, and if the rent is large death 
follows immediately. The retained blood undergoes the familiar change which every- 
body must have observed, when blood is drawn in a basin—/, e., its separation into a 
soft coagulum or clot which is red, and serum which is nearly colorless like water. 
Should the containing sac be punctured under such circumstances, there would nec- 
essarily be an escape of gore and serum, popularly described as blood and water. It 
is difficult to understand how blood and water in any considerable quantity should 
have followed from a spear-thrust in any other way. The Heart itself after death is 
found entirely empty, except in rare cases, when there is a clot, called heart-clot, re- 
garded as abnormal. It is singular that the great painters make the mistake of pic- 
turing the wound on the right side instead of the left. 



THIS WAS THE SON OF GOD. 323 

Out of the lifting darkness, there was heard 

His final, loud, and lamentable word : 

" Reproach My heart has broken— now 's the end. 

Father! My spirit I to Thee commend." iS'To 

At the dread moment He gave up the ghost, 
A new amazement seized the heavenly host. 
The great veil of the Temple, sacred screen, J^^^l^- ^ 
From top to bottom rent by hands unseen. 
Allowed th' excluded day beyond to shine, 
To show a vacant and abandoned shrine. 
And the earth trembled, and the rocks were rent, 
Tombs opened, and from riven monument, 52 

After His resurrection, saints, who slept. 
Divinely quickened and raised up, forth stepped, 53 
And went into the City, and appeared 
To many. All the guard of soldiers feared 54 

Exceedingly, with the centurion, 
When they the earthquake saw, and wonders done. 
'' This was," they all instinctively cried out, 
'' A righteous man, the Son of God no doubt." 
All His acquaintance, and the women who 55 

Waited on Him, and other women too 
From Galilee, far off with streaming eyes 
Beheld these things, and filled the air with cries. 



324 ' THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Wicked hands, how sad the story ! 
Crucified the Lord of Glory, 

Nailed Him to the accursed tree : 
In Thy side the spear did bury. 
Son of God ! and Son of Mary ! 

Murdered One of Calvary ! 

Was there ever known such malice ? 
Gall of hatred in the chalice 

For Thy lips of love wrung out : 
Priests, with scribes and elders, mocking, 
As they pass, O sight most shocking ! 

Wag their heads, revile and flout. 

Was there, Thine own worjds to borrow, 
Ever sorrow like Thy sorrow, 

When our sins were on Thee laid ? 
Sorrow, which that cry could waken, 
'' Why, My God, am I forsaken?" 

Never was since worlds were made. 

Never, after such dear fashion. 

Was there witnessed such compassion ; 

Publish ye, who know the grace ! 
Make commanded proclamation 
Of the Gospel of Salvation, 

To each creature of the race ! 



HIS SIDE PIERCED WITH A SPEAR. 325 

For 't was the Preparation,* the next day 1°^'^ 

Being the Paschal Sabbath, to let stay 

The bodies on the cross beyond the hour 

When holy time began, were trespass sour. 

The Jews, therefore, prayed Pilate to direct 

Their bones be broken, thereby to effect 

Their speedy death, so they could be removed. 

The soldiers broke the other two's, who proved 32 

To be still living, but, when they perceived 33 

Jesus was dead already, they believed 

It needless in His case. His legs to break : 

But with a spear a soldier (death to make 34 

Most sure) the heart-sac pierced, with blood distent, 

A 

Filled from the bursting heart's own fatal rent. 
And John, from the wide wound, saw forthwith pour 
Water and blood, pale serum and red gore, 35 

These Scriptures to fulfil, '* Of Him a bone 36 

Shall not be broken." '' They shall look on One 
Whom the)' have pierced." 37 

That eve, to Pilate came ^^""^ 

' XV. 42 

A man of Arimathea, whose name 43 

Was Joseph, rich, a good man and a just, 

* Sabbath-eve, which was the latter half of the afternoon of Friday, was called the 
Preparation or Parascive^ that being the time set apart by the Jews to prepare for 
the Sabbath. Jesus was crucified at or between 9 a, m. and 12 m.; expired at 3 p. m. 



326 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

One of the Sanhedrim, who, with disgust ^^^^ 

And open disapproval, had beheld 

The furious prejudice which had impelled 

His fellow-judges wickedly to lie, 

And on false charges Jesus crucify. 

Although convinced, by all he saw and knew. 

His august claims authentic were and true, 

He had not dared to openly avow 

His faith and his discipleship ; but now. 

He, boldly, knowing well what shame he braved. 

His body of the procurator craved. 

Pilate, surprised He 'd died so soon, inquired ^+ 

Of the centurion when He expired. 

And, having learned, he gave the asked for leave, ^s 

Joseph the body hastened to receive ; 

And found, awaiting him, most welcome aid x^j^'"^ 

In Nicodemus (once like him afraid. 

But now no longer), who brought ample store, 

Aloes and myrrh a hundred pounds or more, 

For his embalming — Joseph, with like thought, ^^^^s 

Having supply of finest linen brought. 

Now in the place, where He was crucified, xix!^"i 
He had a garden ; in it on one side 
There was a tomb, rock-hewn and newly-made. 



PLACED IN A NEW-MADE TOMB. 327 

In which, as yet, no man was ever laid. J^^!L 

Lifting the lifeless form with tender care, 42 

They thither it most reverently bear. 

And, having washed from all defiling stains 

The mangled, bruised, thrice sacred, dear remains. 

They take the spices and the linen bands, 40 

And swathe the body with soft loving hands. 

Then place it in the tomb, and close the door 

Of entrance with a stone they roil before. 

The sun was setting when the task was done, 

And as they left the Sabbath had begun. 

Next day, chief priests and Pharisees combined 
To sa}^ to Pilate, " We recall to mind, xxvn"62 

That that deceiver said while yet alive. ^3 

' After three days I will again revive.' 
Command, therefore, the sepulchre be made ^'^ 

Sure, till the third day, else, we are afraid, 
That His disciples will Him steal away 
During the night, and to the people say, 
He 's risen from the dead, so shall be worse. 
By far, the final error, than the first." 

And Pilate said : " Ye have a watch. It make ^5 
Sure as ye can — your own precautions take." 
They set a watch, and not with this content, 
They sealed the stone that closed the monument. 



328 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 

Christ crucified ! amazing theme ! 

I see, beneath that mean disguise, 
Th' undoubted peer of God Supreme ! 

The awful Monarch of the Skies ! 

No malefactor He, whose gore 

Drips from the wood and dyes the sod 

Gashed, pierced, and bleeding, I adore 
The meek and patient Son of God. 

O Friend Divine ! I hear those groans 
The shuddering universe appall : 

The pleading pity of those tones, 
Which on my head forgiveness call. 

If I such matchless grace forget, 
This costly charity of heaven. 

Then may I bear th' uncancelled debt, 
And die and never be forgiven. 



VEXILLA REGIS PRODEUNT.— TRANSLATION. 329 



VEXILLA REGIS PRODEUNT —Trans/ation. 
I. 

The Royal Ensign forth is flung, 

The blazon of the Cross unfurled, 
On which incarnate Godhead hung, 

Flesh of our flesh, who made the world. 

II. 

Where from His wounded side, moreo'er, 

By thrust of cruel spear point keen 
Flowed forthwith water mixed with gore, 
To wash from guilt and make us clean. 

III. 
That which the Psalmist David sung 

In faithful song, was thus made good ; 

Saying, ' The Lord hath reigned among 

The subject nations from the wood.'* 

IV. 

Thrice beautiful, far-beaming Tree ! 

Adorned with kingly purple, much 
Hast thou been honored, thus to be 

Chosen His holy limbs to touch. 

* In some Greek copies, and in the old Latin or Italic Version the tenth verse of the 
96th Psalm is : " Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord reigneth from the Tree," 



330 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

V. 

Blest thou, whose arms outstretched were made 
The balance, on whose mystic beam 

The ransom of the world was weighed, 
Souls from perdition to redeem. 

I. III. 

Vexilla Regis prodeunt, Impleta sunt quae concinit 

Fulget crucis mysterium, David fideli carmine, 

Quo carne carnis conditor Dicens, In nationibus 

Suspensus est patibulo : Regnavit a ligno Deus : 

II. IV. 

Quo vulneratus insuper Arbora decora et fulgida, 

Mucrone diro lancese, Ornata Regis purpura, 

Ut nos lavaret crimine Electa digno stipite 

Manavit unda et sanguine. Tarn sancta membra tangere. 

V. 

Beata cujus brachiis 
Pretium perpendit saeculi, 
Statera facta corporis, 
Tulitque praedam tartaris. 

Although the words, " from the tree ' had evidently been added, much stress was laid 
on them by Justin Martyr, Augustine and others, as containing a prophetic intima- 
tion of the manner of Christ's death.— Trench. 

This world-famous Processional Hymn, which Daniel calls " one of the grandest in 
the treasury of the Latin church," was composed by Fortunatus—who lived in the 
sixth century. 



THE WOMEN GOING TO THE SEPULCHRE. 331 



XXIV. 

RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 

Matt, xxviii. 2-20; Mark xvi. 1-20; Luke xxiv. 1-53; John xx. i— xxi. 25. 



Mark 
xvi. I 



THE Sabbath o'er, at early dawn was seen, 
In the dim twilight, Mary Magdalene, 
And Mary who the mother was of James, 
And at her side Salome — sainted names — 
Wending their way unto the Sepulchre, 
Sweet spices bringing each along with her, 
That the embalming which had been begun 
They might complete. They all supposed the Sun 
Had not yet risen, for the East was gray, 
Streaked with faint tokens of the breaking day. 
They thought it early ; little did they know. 
Their Sun was up an hour or more ago. 
And, with His rising light, had chased the gloom, 
And all the doubt and terror of the tomb. 
They, at the time, had heard a rumbling sound, 
And thought it was an earthquake. Had they known, 
That mighty hands then rolled away the stone, 



Matt, 
xxviii. 2 



332 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



From the tomb's mouth, they'd had no need to ask 
Who should perform for them the friendly task : f^f^^ 
For, lo, an angel had come down from heaven, xS% 
And ingress to an empty tomb had given. 
His face like lightning was ; his raiment white, 
Blinding and terrible to mortal sight. 
For fear of him the keepers shook, and then, * 

Swooning away, became like to dead men. 

Now Mary Magdalene, with quickened pace, ^^^"J 
Reached sooner than the rest th' appointed place. 
And, having seen the stone was rolled away. 
She waited not, but ran, without delay, ^ 

To John and Peter with the heavy word : 
" They have removed, we know not where, the Lord." 
Peter and John both run, but John outrun, 3, 4 

And reached the tomb before the other one, s 

And, stooping down, the linen clothes he saw, 
But went not in, restrained by sense of awe. 
Then Peter came, and, ent'ring, saw inside, ^ 

The linen clothes, and napkin that was tied 7 

About His head — each folded up with care, 
And lying separate. Then entered there ^ 

John too, who having seen, in part believed — 



HE IS NOT HERE; HE IS RISEN. 



333 



For they, as yet, had not the sense perceived ^^'^"^ 

Of what the Scriptures, and Himself had said, 
Touching His resurrection from the dead. 
They went away, but Mary still remained. 

Meanwhile,* it chanced, the other women gained 
The Sepulchre soon after she had gone ; ^v% 

And saw, to their surprise, the ponderous stone. 
That closed the entrance, had been rolled away. 
And, entering in, they found to their dismay 3 

The body gone. Perplexed in the extreme, + 

They suddenly beheld, as in a dream, 
Two men stand by them in apparel bright. 
Whose dazzling presence filled them with affright. 
*' Be not afraid ! " one said, " Ye need not fear. ^J,f "5 
I know ye Jesus seek ; He is not here ; 
He is already risen, as He said. 

Why do ye seek the living 'mong the dead ? ^^^^ 

Come see the place, most fragrant still and sweet. 
Where lay His blessed head and where His feet. 
Remember how He said to you, when He ^ 

Was present with you yet in Galilee : 

*It is here assumed, that when the other women reached the tomb Mary Magdalene 
had already gone to tell Peter and John ; and what is related as happening to them 
took place during her absence. When Mary returned with Peter and John, the other 
women had left. 



334 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Luke 
xxiv. 7 



Mark 
xvi. 7 



Matt, 
xxviii. 8 



' The Son of Man, delivered to be tried, 

After mock trial must be crucified, 

And then on the third day must rise again.' 

Yes ! they remembered, and now all was plain. 

'' Haste ! " said the angel, " knowing it is true. 

Tell His disciples, and tell Peter too — 

Unable since his fall to lift his head — 

Your buried Lord is risen from the dead. 

And goes before you into Galilee. 

There, He has promised you, ye Him shall see." 

And they departed quickly, filled with awe 

And trembling joy at all they heard and saw, 

To go to the disciples. While they yet 

Were on the way, behold, them Jesus met, ^ 

And said : " All hail ! " Thrilled with that voice so 

sweet. 
They prostrate fell, and held Him by His feet, 
And worshipped Him — but they embrace refrained, 
By mighty awe and reverence restrained. 
He said : '' Go, tell My brethren to repair 
To Galilee, and I will see them there. 
They went, and told th' apostles and the rest. 
Who disbelief of their report expressed. 



Luke 
xxiv. 9 



JESUS APPEARS TO ^MRY MAGDALENE. 335 

But, Mary Magdalene, when all had left, l^^^. 

Lingered behind. Of her dear Lord bereft, 
His body taken, she would not despair, 
But push inquiry till she found out where. 
Outside the Sepulchre she weeping stood. 
And, as she wept, the thought sprung up, she would 
Look in once more, and, lo ! there met her sight 
Two Angels seated, robed in dazzling white " 

One at the head, the other at the feet, 
Where had the body lain. With accents sweet, '3 
" Woman ! " they said to her, " why weepest thou ? " 
^' Because they have, I know not where or how. 
Removed my Lord." Her head, then turning, she '+ 
Saw Jesus standing, but knew not 't was He. 
And Jesus said : " Woman ! why dost thou weep ? '5 
Whom seekest thou ? " This man, employed to keep 
The garden, so she thought, can end suspense, 
So said : " O Sir, if thou hast borne Him hence, 
Tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will 
Take Him away." There shot a mighty thrill '^ 

Of wild delight and wonder through her frame. 
Then when His well-known voice pronounced her 

name : 
" Mary ! " She turned, and with a joyful shout 



336 



THE LIGHT «F THE WORLD. 



Towards Him sprang with both her arms stretched 
out, 1^1 

Saying : " Rabboni ! " and would on His neck 
Have fallen, had He, her first transports to check, 
Not said : '' Embrace Me not !^ draw not too near. ^7 
Temper thy love with reverence and fear ! 
Worship befits thee ! but the awful bond, 

* The difficulties which beset this passage have grown, we venture to think, out of 
an error of punctuation, and are mostly or wholly disposed of, by simply placing a 
full stop after "Touch Me not." By this means the words are made to form a sen- 
tence which is complete in itself, having neither sj'^ntactical nor logical connection 
with anything that follows. Mary was in the act of throwing her arms around her 
Lord's neck. It was the fault, let us say rather the ecstasy of the moment, and she did 
not need to be told twice the impropriety of the freedom. Nothing seems more in- 
credible, than that our Lord would think it necessary to offer an excuse for not per- 
mitting an embrace whose impropriety was obvious— giving as a reason, that " He 
had not yet ascended to His Father." This would constitute an excellent reason why 
she should hasten to His disciples, having in her possession a piece of information so 
unspeakably interesting and important ; but none, so far as we can see, why she 
should not touch Him. Within the space of a few minutes, either immediately before 
or immediately after, we know that He allowed other women, not only to touch Him, 
but hold Him by His feet. Theirs was an act of worship. He, on that occasion, gave 
no signs of hurry, or impatience at detention. Indeed, we should as soon think of as- 
sociating hurry with the eternities as with the Risen Lord. 

Most strangely, the disciples, notwithstanding declarations the most explicit many 
times repeated, that He would rise again, remained in total ignorance of " what the 
rising from the dead should mean." That it meant that His body was to rise and 
come from the tomb, they had not so much as dreamed. They supposed His words 
were to be understood in some mystic sense, they did not know exactly what. When 
they saw His body taken down from the cross and laid in the sepulchre, they had no 
other thought than that was the end, so far as His life upon the earth was concerned. 
Believing that He had ascended at once to the Father, they never expected to see Him 
again below. It was now the third day since His death ; and to be told that He was 
alive, and still upon the earth — that He had not ascended to the Father yet — would be 
news indeed. But lest they should go to the other extreme, and fall into the error of 
supposing that He intended to remain on the earth to set up His Kingdom in person » 



I HAVE NOT YET ASCENDED. 33^ 

Forbids familiar touch, and acts too fond. 
For that I would My rising certify, 
By proofs infallible and many, I 
Have not ascended to My Father yet. 
Go, therefore, to My brethren, now, to set 
Their troubled minds at rest. Tell them I say 
I live again, but am not here to stay. 

He instructed Mary to saj^ to them, that He was about to ascend, but would see them 
before He did so finally, even as He had promised. Read in the light of these facts — 
with the corrected punctuation, which serves to isolate the words, " Touch Me Not " 
from everything else, as relating to an incident having nothing to do with the com- 
munication which she was to make to the disciples — all is plain and simple. In that 
case the message would run in this wise : " For [or forasmuch as] I am not yet as- 
cended unto My Father, go [now] to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend [after 
forty days?] unto My Father and your Father; and to My God and your God." Or 
some might prefer this reading, which involves no change of words, only the transpo- 
sition of the last member of the sentence, putting it first: "But go to My brethren, 
and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and unto your Father, and to My God 
and your God ; for I am not yei ascended [bodily?] to My Father.' This preserves 
the " but," which in the other case is rendered " now." 

As it can hardly be claimed that the punctuation is inspired, this slight change — 
which makes easy what has been found so difficult and has led to ten thousand ab- 
surdities of interpretation — is, we think, abundantly justified. The error (if error it 
be, and we cannot doubt it) is undoubtedly an ancient one ; and one naturally wonders 
how it has happened, that so many learned and good men have allowed themselves to 
stumble over so small a pebble. 

His actual stay upon the earth was forty days. Where He was during that time it 

were vain to speculate. He could not fail to be at home anywhere in the universe . 

for were not all things made by Him ? One of the objects of this sojourn (there may 

have been others) was to " shew Himself alive after His passion," and certify to His 

disciples the fact of His bodily resurrection, "by many infallible proofs." In order 

that nothing might be wanting to the completeness of the identification. He preserved 

to Himself the organic sameness of His original body — modified possibly in some of 

its accidents, but essentially unchanged — until the time of His Ascension. It may be 

that this " body of His humiliation," as the apostle calls it, while it was the only one 

suited to earthly conditions, was at the same time wholly unfitted for heavenly ; and 

this would constitute a reason why He should not assume " the body of His glor.y " 
22 



338 . THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

I, to My Father and to yours, ascend, 

My God and your God, when My stay shall end. 

And tell them to return to Galilee, 

And That I there, hereafter, will them see." 

To the disciples she the news conveyed, 

How she had seen the Lord, and what He said. 



Matt. 
XXV iii. II 



The guard, into the City having gone. 
Showed to the chief priests all things that were done. 
At the strange tidings, startled and appalled, ^^ 

They straight the Sanhedrim together called, 
Which, after counsel, judged it best to pay 
The soldiers a large sum, if they would say, 
That His disciples in the night had crept ^3 

And stole away the body while they slept — 
Pledging to shield them, to allay their fears, 

until the forty days were fully expired. It was important to the proof, that" no one 
should be able to say that His appearance were phantasmal, or even like the Theoph- 
anies and Angelophanies recorded in the Old Testament. 

A little common sense is sometimes better than much learning. It is quite marvel- 
ous, how the human mind runs on in the same ever deepening rut of error through 
thousands of years, without putting forth an effort to get out of it. We see this illus- 
trated in false religions; and, in a small way, we witness something like it in mistakes 
of interpretation. No error however slight is insignificant. A misplaced period may 
be the source of endless perplexity to innumerable minds. The casual omission of 
brackets which ought to have been inserted has been the cause not only of incalcula- 
ble ink-shedding, but blood-shedding likewise. The tenth chapter of Joshua has been 
fruitful of endless logomachies which have not ceased in our day, arising from the 
failure of some ancient transcriber to preserve lines and marks of division, separating 
poetry from prose. See The Evangel, First Part of this Work pp. 324-332, foot-note. 



JOINS TWO ON THEIR WAY TO EMMAUS. 339 

In case it reached the procurator's ears. xx^hlh 

Taking the bribe, they labored to diffuse 's 

This false report, still current 'mong the Jews. 

And Jesus next Himself to Peter showed. \^^^^- 

That day, as two disciples on the road xiii^% 

To Emmaus were journeying, they talked ^-^ 

Of these occurences, and as they walked, 
Discussing matters, He Himself drew near, '5 

And traveled with them their discourse to hear— 
Appearing, for a purpose, in such guise ^^ 

As they, at first, should not Him recognize. 
He said : " What mournful subject have ye had, ^7 
To make you as you walk downcast and sad?" 
" Great things have happened in Jerusalem," ^^ 

They answered. '' If Thou hast not heard of them 
Thou art the sole sojourner that has not." 
And Jesus said : " What things ? Tell briefly what."^9 
" About Jesus of Nazareth (in fact 
A Prophet, powerful in word and act 
Before the Lord, and all the people). Him, 
Chief priests and others of the Sanhedrim '° 

Condemned to death and crucified. But we 
Trusted 't was He who would set Israel free. ^i 



340 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Besides all this, this being the third day xxH^ — 

Since these things happened, certain women say, ^^ 

That, going early to the Sepulchre, 

They did not find the body ; and aver ^^ 

They Angels saw, who said He was alive. 

From their own eyes assurance to derive, ^- 

Some of our number went, and witness bare 

The tomb was empty, but Him saw nowhere." 

He said, in tones tinged with reproof and grief, ^s 
"■ O dull of mind, and backward of belief 
Concerning what the prophets testify ! 
Ought not the Christ to suffer and to die ^^ 

And pass into His glory through that door. 
Death and the Grave, unbarred forevermore ?" 
Beginning then with Moses, he went on, ^7 

Until through all the prophets He had gone. 
And all the Scriptures opened and explained, 
Which to Himself and Kingdom appertained. 
When to the destined village they drew nigh, ^^ 

It seemed as though He purposed to pass by, 
But they pressed Him to stop, saying, " Abide =9 

With us, for it grows late." And He complied. 
As He there lay at meat with them, He took 30 



THEIR RECOGNITION OF JESUS. 341 

The loaf, blessed, brake, and gave it them. They look, 

They scan His features now with opened eyes, Jti^^^^ 

And all at once their Lord they recognize. 

He disappeared next moment, and they said : 

'' In that last act, the breaking of the bread, 

How could we fail the Master to discern ? 

Did not our hearts, moreo'er, within us burn 32 

While He talked with us all along the roadj 

And the deep meaning oi the Scriptures showed ?" 

And they rose up that very hour and went 33 

Back to Jerusalem, with the intent 

To tell th' Eleven. These, with the rest, they found 

Assembled, who them greeted with the sound : 

^' The Lord is risen indeed, and has been seen 34 

Of Simon." Then they told, how He had been 35 

With them, and how they suddenly were led 

To know Him in the breaking of the bread. 



While they were speaking, Jesus Himself stood, 36 
Though shut and barred the solid doors of wood. 
There in their midst, and said : " Peace be to you !" 
The sight them into consternation threw, 37 

Thinking they saw a spirit. " Why," He said, 38 

'' Do doubts arise ? or why are ye afraid ? 



342 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Luke 



See My pierced hands and feet, and know 'tis I. ^xiv. 39 

Draw near ; My body handle ; test and try, 4° 

Till its identity each doubter owns. 

Knowing a spirit has not flesh and bones." 

When they, for joy and wonder, scarce could be ^^ 

Convinced, He was a dear reality. 

He said for proof: " Have ye not here some meat?" 

And He before them some broiled fish did eat. 42 

Then further spake : " Remember I you told, ^4 

While I was yet with you, that, what of old 

Was in the Law and Prophets said of Me ^s 

And written in the Psalms, fulfilled must be, 

That, in accordance with all prophecies, 

Christ it behooved to suffer, and to rise, ^^ 

And that repentance, holy change within, 47 

And the remission of all forms of sin. 

Should, in His name, be confidently preached 

Among all nations, till each soul is reached. 

Beginning at Jerusalem. Since ye ^^ 

Are of these things the witnesses to be, '^^ 

The Spirit, promised of the Father, I "^^ 

Will pour on you, when I ascend on high. 

And He with power will plenteously endue 

Authenticating and attesting you — 



DOUBTING THOMAS CONVINCED. 343 

Great signs shall follow them, who having heard, 

Believe the proclamation in the Word. 

Go ye. My Gospel preach ! go everywhere ! ^If^ 

To every creature the glad tidings bear ! 

Who trusts and is baptized, he saved shall be : ^^ 

Who trusts not, cannot My salvation see. 

These are the terms on which, by Heaven ordained. 

Men's sins remitted are, or are retained." ■'°^" 

' XX. 23 

Thomas, one of the Twelve, called Didymus ^4 

Not there to see, remained incredulous, 
When told by others, " We have seen the Lord ! " ^5 
'* I '11 not believe He is to life restored," 
He said, " unless I in His hands shall see 
Plainly the nail-prints, and 't is granted me 
To put therein my finger, and to giiide 
My hand and thrust it in His wounded side." 

When the disciples, after eight days* space, ^6 

Again were met together in one place, 
And Thomas with them, Jesus came, and stood 
There in their midst (shut doors could not exclude), 
And said, " Peace be to you !" Then, Thomas told : ^7 
*' Reach hither now thy finger, and behold 
My wounded hands; and hither also guide 



344 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Thy hand, and thrust it in My wounded side ; ^°^^ 
And be not faithless, but believing." He 
Exclaimed, " My Lord ! my God ! I worship Thee : =^ 
Great Vanquisher of Death ! I doubt no more, 
Thou art the Christ the ages waited for !" 
" Because thou hast Me seen, thou dost not doubt. ^9 
Happy who see not, yet believe without !" 



O FILH ET FILIJE.— Translation. 
I. 

O sons and daughters, join the lay ! 
The King, all heavenly powers obey, 
Rose Victor from the dead to-day, 
Alleluia ! 

II. 
Upon the first day of the week. 

As dawn began the east to streak, 

Disciples went the tomb to seek. 

Alleluia ! 

III. 
Salome, Mary Magdalene, 

And James's mother — sad in mien — 

Come to embalm Him, there were seen. 

Alleluia ! 



O FILII ET FILI^.— TRANSLATION. 345 

IV. 

One clothed in white sat at the door, 
Who said : '' The Lord is here no more 
To Galilee He goes before." 
Alleluia ! 

V. 
Th' Apostle John, with love as spur, 

His feet, outrunning" Peter's, were 

First at the empty sepulchre. 

Alleluia ! 

VI. 
When the Disciples met, appeared 

Christ in their midst, and Avhen they feared, 

Pronouncing "Peace !" their hearts He cheered. 

Alleluia ! 

VII. 

As Didymus, not there to see. 
Was told that Christ had risen, he 
Doubted and thought it could not be. 
Alleluia ! 

VIII. 

" Thomas, behold,'' the Master cried, 
" My hands, my feet, my wounded side, 
And be not faithless, but confide ! " 
Alleluia ! 



346 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



IX. 

When Thomas did as Christ him bade, 
His finger in the nail-prints laid, 
" Thou art my Lord and God," he said. 
Alleluia ! 

X. 

Blessed are they who have not seen 
Yet on His word securely lean — 
They shall have endless life serene. 
Alleluia ! 



I. 

O filii et filise, 
Rex coelestis, Rex glorise, 
Morte surrexit hodie, 
Alleluia ! 

II. 
Et mane prima Sabbati, 
Ad ostium monumenti 
Accesserunt discipuli. 
Alleluia ! 

III. 
Et Maria Magdalene 
Et Jacobi, et Salome 
Venerunt corpus ungere, 
Alleluia ! 

IV. 

In albis sedens angelus 
Praedixit mulieribus, 
In Galilea est Dominus. 
Alleluia ! 



VI. 

Discipulis astantibus, 
In medio stetit Christus 
Dicens, Pax vobis omnibus, 
Alleluia ! 

VII. 

Ut intellexit Didymus, 

Quia surrexerat Jesus, 

Remansit fere dubius. 

Alleluia ! 

VIII. 

Vide, Thoma, vide latus, 
Vide pedes, vide manus, 
Noli esse incredulus. 
Alleluia I 

IX. 

Quando Thomas vidit Christum, 
Pedes, manus, latus suum, 
Dixit : Tu es Deus meus • 
Alleluia ! 



Et Joannes apostolus 
Concurrit Petro citius, 
Monumento venit prius, 
Alleluia ! 



Beati qui non viderunt, 
Et firmiter crediderunt, 
Vitam eternam habebunt. 
Alleluia. 



SURREXIT CHRISTUS HODIE.— TRANSLATION. ^,47 



SURREXIT CHRISTUS UOBIE. — Tmns/a^wn. 
I. 

For human solace, Christ to-day 
Rose from the dead to live alway, 
Alleluia. 

II. 
Who suffered death, with anguish sore. 
For wretched man two days before, 
Alleluia. 

III. 
Women, His body to perfume, 
Brought gifts of spices to the tomb. 
Alleluia. 

IV. 

Seeking the Lord, with sorrowing mind, 
Who is the Saviour of mankind. 
Alleluia. 

V. 

They saw a white-robed angel there. 
Who did the joyful news declare. 
Alleluia. 



348 



THE LIGHT OF THE \VORLD. 
VI. 

'' Would you, O trembling women ! see 
The Master, go to Galilee, 
^lleluia. 

VII. 

'' To His disciples tell this thing, 
That He is risen, Glory's King.' 
Alleluia. 

VIII. 

He first appeared to Peter, then 
To all of the remaining ten. 
Alleluia. 

IX. 

Thee in this paschal joy we bless. 
Who art the Lord our righteousness. 
Alleluia. 

X. 

Glory to Thee our Sovereign Head, 
Who rose triumphant from the dead. 
Alleluia. 



I. II. 

Surrexit Christus hodie Mortem qui passus pridie. 

Humano pro solamine, Miserrimo pro homine, 
Alleluia. Alleluia. 



REX SEMPITERNE CCELITUM.— TRANSLATION. 



349 



III. 
Mulieres ad tumulum 
Dona ferunt aromatum, 
Alleluia. 

IV. 

Quaerentes Jesum Dominum, 
Qui est Salvator hominum, 

Alleluia. 
V. 
Album cernentes angelum 
Annunciatum gaudium, 

Alleluia. 

VI, 

Mulieres O tremulae, 

In Galilaeam pergite, 

Alleluia. 



VII. 

Discipulis hoc dicite, 
Quod surrexit Rex gloriae, 
Alleluia. 

VIII. 

Petro dehinc et caeteris 
Apparuit apostolis, 
Alleluia. 

IX. 

In hoc paschali gaudio, 
Benedicamus Domino, 
Alleluia. 

X. 

Gloria tibi, Domine, 
Qui surrexisti a morte, 
Alleluia. 



This and the foregoing Hymn, of unknown authorship, belong to the thirteenth 
century. The first is preeminently the Easter Hymn. Neale remarks : " It is scarcely 
possible for any one, not acquainted with the melody, to imagine the jubilant effect of 
the triumphant ^//^/«/a attached to the apparently less important circumstances of 
the resurrection, ^. ^., Peter's being outstripped by John. It seems to speak of the 
majesty of that event, the smallest portions of which are worthy to be so chronicled." 
The rude simplicity of the originals is preserved in the translation. 



REX SEMPITERNE CCELITUM.— TranshHon. 

I. 

Eternal Sovereign of the skies ! 

Maker of all things that are made ! 
Thou wast the Father's equal Son 

Ere were the world's foundations laid. 



II. 



Thou didst, in Thine own image, make, 
After Thy likeness, man at first 

And to His body, formed of clay 
Conjoined a noble spirit erst. 



350 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

III. 
And, when Satanic fraud and spite 
Corrupted had the human race, 
Thou, clothed with flesh, didst mould anew 
The perished beauty and the grace. 

IV. 

Thou, who wast once from Virgin born, 
Art born now from the grave likewise ; 
And Thou commandest that with Thee 
We buried from the dead shall rise. 

V. 

Nailed ta the cross, Redeemer, Thou 
To pay our debt didst freely pour 
Thy lile-blood out, the price immense, 
Of our salvation evermore. 



I. III. 

Rex sempiterne coelitum, Cum livor et fraus daemonis, 

Rerum Creator omnium, Foedasset humanum genus, 

^qualis ante saecula Tu carne amictus perditam 

Semper parent! filius. Formam reformes artifex. 

II. IV. 

Nascente mundi qui faber Qui natus olim et virgine, 

Imaginem vultus tui, Nunc e sepulcro nasceris, 

Tradens Adamo nobilem, Tecumque nos a mortuis, 

Limo jugasti spiritum. Jubes sepultos surgere. 

V. 

Nobis diu qui debitae, 

Redemptor affixus cruci, 

Nostra dedisti prodigus, 

Pretium salutis sanguinem. 



THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES. 351 

Then the Eleven returned to Gahlee, xxvHi!i9 

Not doubting they should there again Him see, 
According to His promise. On this wise, x^l" 

He showed Himself to their adoring eyes 
Peter and Thomas and Nathanael, ^ 

With James and John, and other two, as well. 
Were fishing on the Lake, and had all night 3 

Caught nothing. Jesus stood at morning light ^ 

Upon the shore, but they knew not 't was He. 
'- Children, how fare ye ? aught to eat have ye ?" s 
They answered, " No !" '' Cast on the boat's right 
side ^ 

The net, and ye shall find." When they complied, 
The number of the fishes was so great 
They could not draw it, baffled by the weight. 
And John to Peter said : " It is the Lord !" 7 

And he, forgetting all else at that word. 
First girding on, with haste, his outer coat, 
Leaped in the sea. The rest came in the boat, ^ 

Dragging the net, some hundred yards, to shore. 
Filled with thrice fifty fishes and three more — " 

And though so many yet was it entire. 
When they were come to land, they saw a fire 9 

Of coals ; a fish there lying ; and some bread. 



John 
xxi. lo 



3^2 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

" Bring ye the fishes ye have caught," He said. 
The broiling done, and everything prepared, 
He said : '' Come, break your fast !" But no one 
dared ^"^ 

To ask their Entertainer, ' Who art Thou ?' 
Knowing it was the Lord. He gave them now '3 
The bread and fish — His Providence seen then. 
At other times invisible to men. 

When they had breakfasted, the Risen One ^s 

To Simon Peter spake : " Say, Simon, son 
Of Jonas, dost thou care^ for me above 
All these ?" " Yea, Lord, Thou knowest I Thee love." 
Jesus said: ''Feed My lambs!" ''But, Simon, dost '^ 
Thou care much for Me ?" " I no more dare boast 
Like the vain braggart of some days ago 
But that. Dear Lord, I love Thee Thou dost know." 
Jesus said: "Tend My sheep !" A third time He ^7 
Asked : " Simon, son of Jonas, lov'st thou Me ?" 

* An imperfect attempt is here made to preserve the distinction between two Greek 
words, ayairaco and (plTieo), lost in our English version, both being indifferently 
translated 'to love.' The first answers to the L,a.tia di'/z'g-o, ' to esteem highly ' ; the 
other to a>;2o, ' to love.' The sentiment expressed in the last is thought to be warmer, 
partaking more of passion than the first. It is remarkable that our Lord in addressing 
Peter, the first two times, used the colder term ; and it was only in His third inquiry 
that he employed the more endearing form. So there are two Greek words, one 
meaning " to feed " properly; the other expressing "care and tendance," but ren- 
dered into English by a common word, " to feed." 



SIMON PETER, LOVEST THOU ME? 353 

Peter was grieved because He three times said, J^^"^ 

"Lovest thou Me," — and so appeal he made : 

" Thou knowest all things, and Thou, Lord, dost know 

Despite my base denial, it is so, 

That my love for Thee is sincere and deep.' 

And Jesus said : " To prove it, Feed My sheep ! 

" Is the wound tender ? Make I thee to wince, 
Probing thy hurt ? Thus I My love evince — 
'T is for thy good I cause thee present pain, 
Lest slightly healed, the sore break out again. 
The lesson of thy fall must not be lost. 
Purchased by thee at such a dreadful cost — 
Sad warning 'gainst self-confidence and pride : 
Clothed with humility, thou shalt abide 
Firm to the end. I speak a faithful word : 
When thou wast young, thou didst thy own self 
gird, ^^ 

And, wheresoe'er thou wouldst, thou wentest — free 
To come and go — but when thou old shalt be, 
Thou shalt stretch forth involuntary hands, 
And thee another gird, and bind with bands. 
And make thee tread the path thy Master trod, 
By crucifixion glorifying God." ^9 

23 



354 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Having thus spoken, He said, '' Follow"^ Me, ^xt- 

As now I walk before. My footprints see, 

And plant thy feet where My own feet have been. 

Hereby thy duty's symbolized and seen : 

I leave thee My example : Follow on ! 

When Peter, turning, saw th' apostle John '^^ 

Walking behind, in the same footmarks, too, 

He, curious, said : '' Lord ! what shall this man do?''^' 

He said ; '^f I so will, what 's that to thee, 

That he should wait My coming? Follow Me !'' 

Among the brethren a belief thereby 

Grew up, that that disciple should not die. ^^ 

After this, Jesus by appointment, showed x^vS'ie 
Himself alive, in a more public mode, 
Upon a Mount He named in Galilee. 
Beside th' Eleven, there present were to see 
Above five hundred brethren. When they knew 'xv°6' 

*Some commentators suppose, that Jesus intended only a spiritual following, but 
that, just then, being in the act of leaving them, Peter understood Him literally 
(thinking he was invited to a private conference), and followed Him accordingly 
We, on the contrary, assume, that He meant to symbolize by significant bodily acts 
the duty of an exact imitation of his example in life and death. That Peter never for- 
got the lesson appears from i Peter ii. 21. 

All the Apostles prior to Christ's death had been comparatively ignorant and weak. 
Never, probably, in the history of mankind, was there wrought so mighty a transfor- 
mation as took place in them afterwards, more particularly after they had received the 
promised gift of the Holy Ghost. They were no longer the same men, either intel- 
lectually or morally. But, even then, how unlike their Master ? 



BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST PROMISED. 355 

Their Risen Saviour, standing in full view, xxvm"i 
They worshipped Him, He said : " To Me is given 
Supreme authority in earth and heaven. ^s 

Go ye, therefore, convert and christianize ^9 

All nations of the earth, and them baptize 
Into the Godhead of the Father, Son, 
And Holy Ghost, th' Eternal Three in One ! 
Teaching them to observe, and all things do ^o 

Which, heretofore, I have commanded you. 
And, lo ! I'm with you alway — still your Friend, 
Helper, Upholder, even to the end." 

He next was seen of James, then all th' Eleven, ^^''''^ 
By proofs infallible and many given, ^'^'^ 

Showing Himself alive to their rapt gaze 
After His Passion, during forty days, 
And speaking of the things that appertain 
To God's dear Kingdom and Messiah's Reign. 

The day of Pentecost at hand, with them 
Once more assembled at Jerusalem, 
He charged them there to wait, and not to leave 
Till they the Father's '' Promise " should receive — 
The mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost — 
To be poured out in a few days at most. 



356 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Again convened, they asked Him : " Lord, wilt 
Thou t? 

Restore to Israel the kingdom now ?" 
He said : '' Ye seek to know what is concealed, 7 

The times and seasons are things unrevealed, 
The Father these has put in His own power — 
Divine fulfillments wait their proper hour. 
But ye '11 new powers receive, and functions new : ^ 
For when the Holy Ghost is come on you. 
Ye then shall be My witnesses to them 
Who were My murderers in Jerusalem, 
And testify of Me in every place — 
The willing Saviour of the human race." 

He led them forth then, after these commands, xxi"^% 
To Bethany ; and lifting up His hands si 

He blessed them ; and, with wondering dazed eyes, 
Through the still air they saw His body rise — 
Not needing wings — till in th' ethereal height 
A waiting cloud received Him out ol sight. 
He, passing through the portals of the sky. 
Sat down at the right hand of God on high. 



PORTAS VESTRAS ^TERN ALES.— TRANSLATION. 357 



PORTAS VESTRAS JETERN ALES.— Translation. 

I. 

Lift ye up the eternal portals, 
O ye high and blest immortals ! 

Heavenly doors wide open swing. 
Comes the Lord of Angels straightway, 
Nears the everlasting gateway, 

Lift ye up, admit your King ! 

II. 
Joyful He, all white and ruddy, 
Lo, He comes from conquest bloody. 

Bright in vestments purple dyed, 
Glorious in His raiment holy. 
Marching in His own strength solely, 

Many thousands by His side. 

III. 
All alone and unattended. 
Forth from Heaven His way He wended ; 

But returning, many brings — 
Fruit of His divine affection, 
Of His death and resurrection. 

Crop of heavenly harvestings. 



358 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

IV. 

Joy ye in the God of Zion ! 
Conquered hath His foes, the Lion, 

Seed of Abraham, triumphed hath. 
Ruins earth no more shall cumber. 
Heaven shall be increased in number, 

Guilty souls be saved from wrath. 

V. 
May He reign, the Vindicator, 

Christ of men, the Liberator, 

King of Mercy, Prince of Peace, 
God Most Mighty, Life-bestow er. 
And of death the Overthrower, 
May His praises never cease ! 
I. III. 

Portas vestras aeternales Solus erat in egressu 

Triumphales, principales, Sed ingentem regressu 

Angeli, attollite, Affert multitudinem. 

Eja, tollite actutum, Fructum suae passionis 

Venit Dominus virtutum, Testum resurrectionis 

Rex aeternae gloriae. Novam coeli segetem. 

II. IV. 

Venit totus laetabundus, Eja, jubilate Deo, 

Candidus et rubicundus, Jacent hostes, vicit leo 

Tinctis clarus vestibus. Vicit semen Abrahse, 

Nova gloriosus stola Jam ruinae replebuntur 

Gradiens virtute sola Coeli civis augebuntur 

Multis cinctus millibus. Salvabuntur animse. 

V. 

Regnet Christus triumphator 

Hominumque liberator 

Rex misericordise. 

Princeps pacis, Deus fortis. 

Vitae dator, victor mortis, 

Laus coelestis curiae. 



THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 



359 



Acts ii 1-38. 

The aay of Pentecost now fully come — ^^^^ 

End of the numbered weeks completed sum, 
Ten days from the Ascension of our Lord — 
As the disciples were with one accord 
( Six score about ) assembled in one place, *• "s 

Waiting in prayer before the Throne of Grace, 
All suddenly a sound from Heaven there came, "• ^ 
Like a strong rushing wind, and tongues of flame s 
Divided sat on each, while everywhere 
Was interfused in air a God-breathed air, 4 

Filling the house, and filling all the lungs — 
And they began to speak in foreign tongues. 

Men from all lands astonished gathered round, s 

Attracted by the miracle of sound — 
Strange pulsings of that inner atmosphere 
With modulations varied to each ear. 
So that each spoken word was understood 
By all that polygiottous multitude. 
" What meaneth this ?" they said — " we hear them 
teach 7 

God's wondrous doings in our native speech." ^ 

But others said, jocosely : " We mistrust '3 



26o THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

These men have drunk too freely of sweet must." * 

But Peter, standing up with the Eleven, ^^^ll 

With loud voice spake beneath the open heaven : 

*' Men of Judea ! and, all ye who dwell 

Here in Jerusalem ! hearken, while I tell, 

These are not drunk, as ye assume and say, ^s 

Since it is but the third hour of the day. 

But this is what the prophet Joel meant— ^^ 

Being fulfillment and accomplishment 

* The word here rendered " new wine " is in the original Greek, yXev/covf = g-/eu- 
kotis. The meaning assigned to it in the Greek Lexicon is must. It is so rendered in 
the Vulgate. These Pentecostal mockers evidently used it in that sense. To under- 
stand them otherwise were to miss the point of their sarcasm. They thought it was 
severely funny to ascribe (ironically, of course) impossible effects to simple grape 
juice. Could we have overheard their talk among themselves, it would probably 
have been much after this fashion : " These men are drunk ; but being good men, it is 
not permitted us to think, that they would drink anything stronger than water, or 
must, at most; and so, if found intoxicated, it cannot be due to any fault of theirs, 
but has resulted from some unaccountable perversity in the operation of an innocent 
beverage " — the jibe, having its counterpart in modern slang, which imputes to excess 
of sweet cider, or soda water, antiphrastically, great intoxicating powers. 

This would pass with them for wit, and raise a laugh, which would be sure to have 
been renewed, culminating in loud explosions of laughter, had any one present, 
with a grave face and an aspect of profound wisdom, denied the possibility of water 
or must making any one drunk, and had insisted, therefore, that it must have been 
some fermented article. They little thought, that two thousand years afterwards, 
learned men, through failure to appreciate their sorry joke, would feel it incumbent 
on them to show that "gleukos" was a very intoxicating liquor, causing a. /ect^ liar 
kindofdrtinkenness, distinguishable from every other — for unless distinguishable, how 
should they know that it yvas gleukos that made them drunk rather than something 
else. This however is only one of many illustrations of the truth of what Shakespeare 
says: 

" A jest's prosperity lies in the ear 

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue 

Of him that makes it." 



PETER'S PENTECOSTAL DISCOURSE. ^ 361 

Of the sure word of ancient prophecy, {^^^ 

Concerning what in the Last Days should be : ^7 

'' I will," God said, " My Spirit pour out, then, 

Upon the daughters and the sons of men, ^^ 

And they shall prophecy— and one and all 

Shall then be saved, who on the Lord shall call. ^^ 

Ye men of Israel, to me give ear ! 

Jesus of Nazareth — by proofs most clear. 

By miracles and signs and wonders shown. 

Among you wrought, and, therefore, to you known 

To be the power of God — Him up being given, ^3 

By the foreknowledge and the will of Heaven, 

Ye wickedly did crucify and 'slay ; 

Whom God raised from the dead on the third day — =+ 

Loosing the bands inviolate of old — 

For 't was not possible Him death should hold. 

For David in His name speaks in one place : ^s 

' I aye the Lord beheld before My face ; 

For He 's on My right hand ; My heart, therefore, 

Was glad ; My tongue rejoiced. My flesh, moreo'er,^^ 

Shall also dwell in hope, because, that Thou ^7 

Wilt not My soul in Hades leave, nor wilt allow 

Thy Holy One to see corruption ? Let 29 



362 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



Me say, that David died, and we have yet j^^^ 

His tomb with us. Being a prophet, he, 30 

Knowing that God hath sworn, that there should be 

One from his loins to sit upon his throne, 

In dignity surpassing far his own. 

Spake with a foresight that the end sufficed, 

Touching the resurrection of the Christ — 31 

His soul was not in Hades left, nor did 

His flesh corruption see, as thing forbid. 

This Jesus, God raised up, whereof we are 32 

All witnesses. Being exalted, far 33 

Above the highest heaven, to God's right hand. 

Clothed with suprem*e dominion and command. 

And having of the Father (all achieved) 

The promise of the Holy Ghost received. 

He hath poured forth this which ye see and hear. 

For David further saith, with meaning clear : 34 

'' The Lord to my Lord said : '^ Sit in repose 

On my right hand, until I make Thy foes 35 

Thy footstool ! Let the house of Israel 36 

Be certain, therefore, of the truth I tell — 

This Jesus, whom ye lately crucified, 

Hath God made Christ and Sovereign Lord beside." 



VENI, CREATOR SPIRITUS.— TRANSLATION. 363 



VENI, CREATOR SPUilTlJS.— Trans/atton. 
I. 

Creator Spirit, come ! 

Thy praying people wait ; 
Fill with Thyself and make Thy home 

In breasts Thou didst create. 

II. 
Thou Gift of God above ! 
Our Paraclete Thou art — 



While he was speaking, pricked in heart, there 
spread u"^ 

Through the vast multitude a solemn dread ; 
And, at the end, from lips of pallid hue 
Arose the cry : " What, brethren, shall we do ?" 
And Peter said : " Repent, and be baptized 3^ 

In Jesus' name, for thus is symbolized 
Remission of offences against Heaven, 
So shall the Holy Ghost to you be given. 39 

Then were baptized, all who the word believed, 
Three thousand being on that day received. 



3^4 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

The Living Fount, the Fire, the Love, 
The Breath that sets apart. 

III. 
With sevenfold grace endue : 

Finger of God here reach: 
Thou, Promise of the Father, who 

Dost throats enrich with speech. 

IV. 
Kindle a light within : 

Love in our bosoms pour, * 
Strengthen our weakness, purge our sin, 

Make steadfast evermore. 

V. 
The enemy drive far : 

Give peace to every one : 
Be Thou our Leader in the war, 

That we all ill may shun. 

VI. 

May we the Father know. 

And know the Son through Thee, 

Believe Thou art of both, and so 
Forevermore wilt be. 



VENI, CREATOR SPIRITUS.— TRANSLATION. 



365 



VII. 

Let praise to Father, Son, 
And Paraclete be said ! 

And may there be on everyone 
The Spirit's charism^ shed ! 



Veni, Creator Spiritus, 
Mentes tuorum visita, 
Imple supernd gratia 
Quae tu creasti pectora. 



II. 



Qui Paraclitus diceris, 
Altissimi donum Dei, 
Fons vivus, ignis, caritas, 
Et spiritalis unctio. 



III. 



Tu septiformis munere, 
Dextrae Dei tu digitus, 
Tu rite promissum Patris 
Sermone ditans guttura. 



IV. 

Accende lumen sensibus, 
Infunde amorem cordibus, 
Infirma nostri corporis 
Virtute firmans perpete. 

V. 

Hostem repellas longius, 
Pacemque dones protinus, 
Ductore sic te praevio 
Vitemus omne noxium. 

VI. 

Per te sciamus, da, Patrem, 
Noscamus atque Filium, 
Te utriusque Spiritum 
Credamus omni tempore. 



VII. 



Sit laus Patri cum Filio, 
Sancto simul Paraclito, 
Nobisque mittat Filius, 
Charisma Sancto Spiritus. 



*Charism (Gr. charisma, a gift). A miraculous gift, e. g., as of healing, of tongues, etc. 



366 



THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 



VENI, CREATOR SPIRITV S.—ParaJ>/imsed. 
I. • 

Creator Spirit, who didst brood 
Above the watery solitude, 
And shoot into abysmal night 
The blessed beams of life and light, 
Whence worlds on worlds in beauty rose 
To fill the void, and at the close 
Didst fashion man above the rest 
To make a Temple of his breast — 
O come, inhabit it once more, 
Its pristine purity restore ! 

II. 

Thou, who art called the Paraclete— 
Of highest God the Gift most sweet — 
The Living Fount that gushes free, 
Upspringing to eternity ; 
The Fire that warms and purifies ; 
The Love that antedates the skies ; 



VENI, CREATOR SPIRITUS.— PARAPHRASED. 367 

The Unction and the Breath Divine 
That consecrate and make us Thine, — 
Come, visit us, come, Holy Ghost ! 
And let us be Thy honored host. 

III. 

Sevenfold the gifts Thou dost dispense, 

Finger of God's omnipotence ! 

Before the might Thou dost supply, 

The unresisting demons fly, 

The sick, by a swift miracle. 

Thou makest in a moment well : 

The Promise of the Father, sent 

To make throats rich and opulent 

With the divinity of speech 

And power in various tongues to teach. 

IV. 

Light in our darkened senses dart ; 

Love shed abroad in every heart ; 

The frailties of our body aid — • 

By virtue strengthened and upstayed ; 

The enemy of souls repel ; 

Let peace henceforth within us dwell ; 



368 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

Be Thou our Leader and our Guide, 
Nor suffer us to turn aside ; 
Ag-ainst our treacherous hearts defend, 
And be our Advocate and Friend ! 

V. 

Both from the Father and the Son 
Thou dost proceed, for God is One. 
Help us to apprehend through Thee 
The dearness of the Trinity : 
With interceding groans and cries 
Let our doxologies arise, 
And with a pathos all their own 
Plead for us at th' Eternal Throne. 
We Father, Son and Thee adore — 
The Triune God forevermore. 



TEXTUAL INDEX. 



OLD TESTAMENT. 



Chap. 



Verse. 



Volume. 



Page. 



GENESIS. 



i. 


26 




Ill 


15 




Vll. 


11- 


17 


XI 


9- 


II 


Xlll. 


10 




XIV. 


3- 


10 


XVlll. 


2, 


22 


XIX. 


24, 
30 


25 


XXll. 


18 




XXlll. 


19 




XXXll. 


I- 


II 




22, 


23 




24, 


30 


xi. 


9- 


II 


xli. 


43 




xlix. 


10 





Evangel. 



L. of W. 
Evangel. 



13, 14 

49 

144 

284 

129 

130, 140 

22 
129 
270 

50 
270 

258, 259 
262-264 

22 
232 

82 
50, 57 



EXODUS. 




Evanarel. 



226 
70, 71 
292, 293 
298 



LEVITICUS. 



11. 
viii. 
xii. 



II 
6-12 

2-8 



Evangel. 



230 

122, 123 
71, 72 



Chap. 



Verse. 



Volume. 



Pagre. 



XVI. 
xviii. 

XX. 

xxiv. 



10 
21 

2-5 
16 



Evangel. 



141 

276 

276 

67 



NUMBERS. 



Xlll. 

xxi. 

xxii. 
xxvii. 

xxix. 
xxxii. 



2 I Evangel. 

3 
16 

21, 23 

I, 2-28 

8, 10 

2-18 

1-26 



220-229 
234 
65 

250, 259 

299. 310 

27 
299-310 

250 



DEUTERONOMY 




JOSHUA. 



i. 


I, 5, 9 


11. 


1-22 


111. 


2-16 



Evangel. 



311 
311-312 

312, 317 



24 



370 



TEXTUAL INDEX. 



Chap. 



IV. 
V, 

vi. 

vii. 

viii. 

ix. 

X. 

xi. 
xxii. 
xxiv. 



Verse. 



Volume. 



Page. 



IV. 
V. 

vi. 
xii, 
ix. 



1-19 

1-15 

13-16 

1-19 

1-26 

I 
3-16 

1-43 
1-23 
1-6 

31 



Evangel, 



317 

315-319 
22 

3i9> 321 
320-322 
322 
322 

322-328 
328-332 

332, 333 
334 



JUDGES. 




RUTH. 



1-21 Evangel. 



343-348 



I SAMUEL. 



3-II 

I-IO 

1-21 
I, 2 

1-15 



Evangel. 



340, 341 

341, 342 
342 

343 
294 



Chap. 



Verse. 



Volume. 



Page. 



X. 

xi. 
xii. 
xiii.j 

XV. 

xvi. 

xix. 

xxii. 

xxiii. 

xxiv. 





I, 


2 




I- 


■14 


I 


12, 

6 


23 




22, 


23 




I, 


10 




22 






I 






25 






3 





Evangel. 



290, 291 

291, 292 
291, 292 

270 

286 

187, 294 
187-189 
270 
270 
270 



II SAMUEL. 



1. 
ii. 
iii. 
iv. 

V. 

vi. 

vii. 
xvii. 
xviii. 



17-27 
4-17 
I 

5-12 
3-9 
2-15 
2-13 

24 
9. 14, 33 



Evangel. 



326 
348, 260 

348 

348 
348, 349 

349 

352 

260 
261. 262 



I KINGS. 



iv. 


33 


Evangel 


244, 245 


vni. 


3-39 




352-355 


X. 


II, 43 




356 




31, 33 




361 


XI. 


1-43 




355, 356 


Xll. 


1-32 




357. 358 


XV. 


29 




361 


XVIU. 


4-13 




270 


XIX. 


14-18 




358, 359 


XXII. 


29-37 




359, 360 


xxvn. 


6 




361 


XXVIU. 


I 




362 


II KINGS. 


xvii. 




L. of W. 


20 



TEXTUAL INDEX. 



3/1 



Chap. 



Verse. 



Volume. 



Page. 



I CHRONICLES. 



8-15 Evangel 260 



II CHRONICLES. 



Chap. 



Verse. 



Volume. 



Page. 





PROVERBS. 


vii. 
viii. 


5 
12 

Note. 
22, 31 


L. of W. 
Evangel. 


XX. 






xxni. 
xxxiii. 


29-35 

4. 5 





83 

225 

225 

91, 92 

212-217 
212-218 
212-218 



ECCLESIASTES. 



244 

381 



238-248 
238-248 
238-241 
238-248 
238-248 
238-248 




172 



TEXTUAL INDEX. 



Chap. 



Verse. 



Volume. 



Page. 



JEREMIAH. 





19 


Evangel. 


vu. 


II 




Vlll. 


22 




XXlll. 


6 




XXIX. 


10 




XXXll. 


35 




xliii. 


13 




xHx. 


16 






EZEKIEL. 



viii. 


16 


Evangel. 


XXVll. 


5.6 




XXXIV. 


23, 24 




xxxix. 


II, 18 




xlvii. 


6, 8 


( < 



236 

237 
51 
237, 238 
132, 138 



DANIEL. 



ii. 


24 


L. of W. 


vii. 


13, 14 


< ( 


IX. 


25 


< i 




24-27 


Evangel. 



OBADIAH. 



2-6 



Evangel. 



5 

5 

5 

51 



i. 3, 4 Evangel. 270 
JONAH. 



124, 125 



Chap. 



Verse. 



Volume. 



Pas-e. 



MICAH. 



v. 


2-6 


Evangel. 




2 


" 


vi. 


6-8 


( ( 




5-8 


( ( 


IV. 


6, 7 


L. of W. 



270 

52 
286, 287 

303 

5 





NAHUM. 




i. 


4 


Evangel 


238 


HABAKKUK. 


ii. 


15 


Evangel. 


219 


HAGGAI. 


ii. 


7 
3-9 


Evangel. 

1 i 


51 
366 




ZECHARIAH 




vi. 
xi. 


12, 13 
12 


Evangel. 
L. of W. 


51 

278 




MALACHI. 





5.6 

5, 6 



Evangel. 



112 
171 



TEXTUAL INDEX. 



373 



NEW TESTAMENT. 



Chap. 



Verse. 



Volume. 



Page. 



MATTHEW. 



i. 


1-17 


Evangel. 




18-25 


( < 




21 


1 < 


11. 


1-23 


" 


ill. 


1-12 


" 




13-17 


< ( 




12 


L. of W. 


IV. 


i-ii 


Evangel. 




12-16 


( ( 




13-22 


L. of W. 




17 


1 1 


V. 


1-48 


( ( 




33, 37 


Evangel. 


VI. 


5-15 


< < 




1-34 


L. of W. 


Vll. 


23 


Evangel. 




1-29 


L. of W. 


vm. 


29 


Evangel. 




I, 5-13 


L. of W. 




14-17 


( ( 




2-4 






18-34 


( ( 


IX. 


2-8 
9-17 


t < 




I, 18-35 


< ( 


X. 


I, 5-39 


( ( 




34-36 


Evangel. 


x:. 


I 
2-ig 


L. of W. 

(1 




25-27 


Evangel. 




27 


( 1 


Xll. 


1-21 
24-50 


L. of W. 




46-50 


Evangel. 




Note. 


( ( 


Xlll. 


1-52 


L. of W. 



26-28 

42, 43 

65-69 

77-90 

104-119 

120-141 

8 
142-169 
234-240 

38-43 
30 

75-87 
284, 285 

372-385 
87-92 

120-125 
92-96 

187-191 

98, 99 

44-50 

50, 51 

135-139 

51-55 

55-60 

139-149 

143-149 

75 
149 
103-109 

92, 93 
121-125 
69, 72 
118-124 

197, 198 
186 
128-134 



Chap. 


Verse. 




3-12 




58 




55 


xiv. 


3-12 




I 




6-10 




13-36 


XV. 


1-38 


XVI. 


15, 19 




13-23 


XVll. 


1-21 


XVUl. 


1-35 




8, Note. 




18 


XIX. 


13-30 


XX. 


1-16 




17-34 




28 


XXI. 


1-17 




28-46 




29-32 


XXll. 


41-45 




15-46 


XXlll. 


1-39 




35 


XXIV. 


1-51 




34, Note 


XXV. 


1-46 




12, Note 


XXVI. 


1-29 




17-29 




30-75 




53 


xxvu. 


1-30 




31-66 




3 


XXVlll. 


1-20 




19 




18-20 



' Volume. 



L. of W. 

Evangel. 
L. of W. 

Evangel 
L. of W. 

Evangel. 
L. of W. 



Evangel. 
L. of W. 



Evangel, 
L. of W. 

Evangel. 

L. of W. 

Evangel. 
L. of W. 



Evangel. 
L. of W. 
Evangel. 
L. of W. 
Evangel. 
L. of W. 

Evangel. 
L. of W. 

Evangel. 



Page. 



100, 103 

34 
102, 103 
100, 103 

308 

283 

149-153 
159-164 
177-181 
66, 167 
167, 170 

172, 175 

162 

179, 181 
225-228 
228-230 
231-233 

loi, 102 
237-240 
242-244 
109 

51 
245-247 
248-254 

83 

256-267 

209 

267-272 
120, 121 

276-284 

226-228 

295-303 
277, 278 

310-316 

317-327 
109 

331-351 
166, 118 



374 




TEXTUAL 


INDEX. 






Chap. 


Verse. 


Volume. 


Page. 


Chap. 


Verse. Volume. 

1 ! 


Page. 








LUKE. 






MARK. 










i. 


5-25 
26-56 


Evangel. 


29-35 










35-42 


i. 


1-8 


Evangel. 


104, 119 




57-80 


1 ( 


44-48 




12, 13 


1 ( 


142-169 




31 


( < 


65-69 




35 


( < 


236 




15, ^v. 


( 1 


230 




38 


L. of W. 


30 


ii. 


1-7 


( 1 


55-58 




16-20 


( 1 


39-43 




8-20 


( ( 


58-62 




21-45 


( ( 


44-51 




21 


( ( 


65-69 


ii. 


1-12 


Evangel. 


369-371 




22-29 


1 1 


71-76 




16, 17 


( < 


214 




52 


i i 


91-93 




27, 28 


( 1 


292, 293 




41-51 


" 


94-103 




1-12 


L. of W. 


51-53 




42, A^. 


1 ( 


2 




13-28 


< ( 


55-70 


iii. 


1-18 


i < 


IO4-II9 


iii. 


31-35 


Evangel. 


195, 197 




23-38 


< ( 


26-28 




Note. 


» > 


186 




23 


" 


140, 141 




1-12 


L. of W. 


70-72 


iv. 


1-13 


( 1 


142-169 




13-19 


( ( 


75 




15 


L. of W. 


30-36 




19-35 


( < 


118-124 




31-44 


" 


44-50 


iv. 


1-32 


( ( 


128-132 


V. 


i-ii 


( ( 


43 




35-41 


L. of W. 


135, 136 




12-26 


( 1 


50-53 


V. 


20-43 


< ( 


136-142 




27-39 


i t 


55-60 




3 


Evangel. 


270 


vi. 


i-ii 


( 1 


69, 70 


vi. 


6-13 


L. of W. 


143, 144 




12-49 


1 1 


75-96 




21-27 


( 1 


100-103 


vii. 


24, 25 


i ^ 


47, 48 




30-56 


1 < 


149-153 




1-17 


1 1 


98-100 


vii. 


1-37 


' ' 


159-163 




18-35 


i t 


103-109 


viii. 


I-IO 


< 1 


163, 164 




36-50 


1 1 


109-115 




27-30 


1 ( 


165, 166 


viii. 


19-21 


Evangel. 


195-198 


ix. 


2-29 


( 1 


167-170 




Note. 


<< 


186 




30, 33-50 


( < 


172, 173 




1-3 


L. of W. 


114-118 




49 


" 


78 




3 


( i 


308 


X. 


I 


( ( 


311 




4-15 


i i 


128, 130 




13-52 


" 


225-233 




19-21 


i i 


124 


xi. 


1-33 


" 


238-242 




22-56 


( ( 


135-142 


xii. 


1-44 


( 1 


242-254 


ix. 


23. 


Evangel. 


216 • 


xiii. 


1-37 


" 


256-267 




1-6 


L. of W. 


143-144 


xiv. 


1-25 


1 1 


276-284 




6 


( ( 


149 




26-72 


1 1 


295-304 




10-17 


( ( 


149-151 


XV. 


1-19 


1 < 


306-317 




28-62 


< ( 


167-176 




20-47 


" 


317-327 


X. 


13 


Evangel. 


161-164 


xvi. 


1-20 


( 4 


331-351 




21-23 


( < 


92-93 




15 


1 ( 


6 




15 


( ( 


244 







TEXTUAL INDEX. 




375 


Chap. 


Verse. 


Volume. 


Page. 


Chap. 


Verse. 


Volume. 


Paffc. 




I, 17-20 


L. of W. 


175, 176 




17 


Evangel. 


366 




25-42 


< ( 


182-185 




13-21 


< < 


367-369 


xi. 


27, 28 


Evangel. 


195-198 




23-25 


L. of W. 


I. 2 




Note. 


( < 


186 




8 




208 




13 


L. of W. 


8 1 


iii. 


3 


Evangel 


21 




14-36 


' ' 


118 




16 


' ' 


iS 




27 


' ' 


124 j 




1-21 


L. of W. 


3-10 


xii. 


I 


( < 


124, 125 ! 




3-6 


' ' 


206 




13-21 


< ( 


125 




22-36 


" 


14-16 


xiii. 


32 


Evangel. 


105 


iv. 


14 


t < 


8 




25-27, yV. 


( ( 


120-123 ! 




1-42 


1 ( 


19-27 




1-9 


L. of W. 


126, 127 




21-23 


( « 


27, 28 




22-35 


' ' 


211, 212 




43-54 


' ' 


29. 30 


xiv. 


5-24 


' ' 


212-214 


V. 


15-21 


' ' 


149-153 


XV. 


1-32 


( ( 


214-218 




32 


' ' 


207 


xvi. 


I-3I 


( < 


220-223 




19 


Evangel. 


209 


xvii. 


20, 21 


" 


6 




I 


L. of W. 


2 




12-18 


t ( 


176, 177 




1-47 


1 < 


60-68 


xviii. 


i6, 17 


Evangel. 


92, 93 ! 


vi. 


42 


Evangel. 


21 




1-8 


L. of W. 


224, 225 




5-21 


L. of W. 


150, 151 




15-30 


( < 


231-233 




22-69 


( < 


153-157 


xix. 


46 


Evangel. 


367 




39, 40 


1 i 


207 




1-44 


L. of W. 


233-240 j 


vii. 


5, 13 


Evangel. 


236 


XX. 


20-47 


( ( 


245-248 




I 


L. of W. 


2 


xxi. 


20, N'. 


Evangel. 






8-52 


" 


177-179 




1-36 


L. of W. 


254-257 


viii. 


37 


Evangel. 


75 


xxii. 


31,32,40 


Evangel. 


218 




58, N. 


L. of W. 


258 




7-20 


( ( 


226 




1-59 


( 1 


179-181 




1-20 


L. of W. 


276-284 


ix. 


1-41 


1 < 


185-189 




39-71 


( ( 


295-304 


X. 


1-42 


* * 


189-193 


xxiii. 


1-19 


* ' 


305-309 


xi. 


. 1,38 


Evangel. 


372 




33-56 


< ( 


317-327 




1-46 


L. of W. 


194-198 


xxiv. 


1-53 


< < 


331-356 




20-25 


i ( 


199 










xii. 


47-54 
20 


1 ( 


210, 211 








254-256 




JOHN. 


! 




2 


( i 


276 








xiii. 


I, 10-19 

1-38 


(( 


237-239 










278-283 


i. 


1-18 


Evangel. 


13-18 


xiv. 


30 


Evangel. 


52 




17 


" 


92, 93 




26 


( ( 


213 




31-34 


1 < 


120-141 




1-31 


L. of W. 


284-291 




19-51 


( i 


170-184 




2 


1 ( 


209 




II 


" 


235 


XV. 


1-27 


( ( 


284-287 




13 


L. of W. 


7 


xvi. 


1-33 


' ' 


1 287-291 


ii. 


i-ii 


1 ( 


1S5-234 


xvii. 


1-26 


' ' 


1 291-293 




12 


' ' 


235 




25 


( < 


1 199 



37^ 



TEXTUAL INDEX. 



Chap. 1 Verse. Volume. 



1. 
ii. 

vii. 

viii, 

ix. 



XI. 
XV. 



Page. 



ACTS. 



i. 


3-8 
15 


L. of W. 


11. 


1-39 


' ' 




37, 38 


Evangel. 


111. 


19 




IV. 


II, 12 




vi. 


1-3 


(I 


Vll. 


45, 54 


I ( 


Vlll. 


9-1 1 




X. 


38 


< ( 




34 


L. of W. 


xi. 


I 


Evangel. 


Xlll. 


6, 8 


( ( 




33 


( ( 




I 


L. of W. 


xvi. 


24-28 


( ( 


XX. 


21 


< ( 



355, 356 
359 

359-363 
179-181 
179-181 
179-181 

292, 293 
64-95 
78 

122, 123 

7 

283 

66, 78 
122, 123 

308 

27, 28 
179, 181 



ROMANS. 



25 

5 

4 
13 
I9>23, 32 
4, 5 

5 

4 
12 
29 

I 



Evangel, 

L. of W. 

( ( 
Evangel. 



L. of W. 

Evangel, 




I. CORINTHIANS. 



ii. 


9 


L. of W. 


iii. 


II, 21, 22 


Evangel. 


V. 


6-8 


(( 




7 


< < 


VI, 


ID 




xi. 


23 


L. of W. 


XV. 


5 


( ( 




6, 7 


( ( 




36-52 


< ( 



9 

178, 179 
227 
236 

225 
284 

339 

354, 355 
203, 204 



Chap. 



Verse. Volume. 



Pagre. 



II CORINTHIANS. 



V. 


21 

I, 3 


L. of W. 


Vll. 


10 


Evangel. 



9 
205, 208 
108 



GALATIANS. 



iii. 


28 


L. of W. 


IV. 


4,6 
6-19 


Evangel. 



7 
49, 64 
186 



EPHESIANS- 



i. 


5,8 


Evangel. 


11. 


50 


< ( 




1-5 


L. of W. 


V. 


8-10 


Evangel. 




26 


( ( 



225 
178, 181 

I, 68 

78, 125 

8 



PHILIPPIANS. 



ii. 


6 
9 


Evangel. 
L. of W. 


111. 


20 
21 


( < 
< 1 




10, II 


< ( 


iv. 


I 


1 ( 



63, lOI 



202, 285 
207 

26 



COLOSSIANS. 





15, 16 


Evangel. 


11. 


13 


L. of W. 


iii. 


3 


< I 


iv. 


5.6 


< ( 




II 


<( 



63 

7,68 
201 
78 
66 



TEXTUAL INDEX. 



377 



Chap. 



Verse. 



Volume. 



Page. 



I THESSALONIANS. 



ig, 20 

6-8 
23 



L. of Vv^. 26 
Evangel. 223, 224 
L. of W, 198 



II THESSALONIANS. 



n. 
iii. 



Evangel. 



I TIMOTHY. 



II TIMOTHY. 



i. 


10 


Evangel. 


11. 


17, 18 


•' 


IV 


I, 8 
3, 4 


" 



TITUS. 



13 lEvangel. 
5 JL. of W. 



89 



ii. 


14 


Evangel. 


50 


111. 


2, 3 




220-222 


IV. 


7 


( ( 


103 


VI. 


14 




89 




20 


( 1 


19 



89 

19 

89 

103 



go 



Chap. Verse. Volume. Page 



HEBREWS. 



i. 
iv. 


4, 6 
5,6 

8 


Evangel. 
1 ( 


v. 


5 
5-10 






VII. 


14 
21 

21-27 
25 






X. 


1-7 






xu. 


3 






xiii. 


29 

8 







63 

122, 123 

65 
122, 123 
I2O-I4I 

56 
109 

52, 53 
197 
53> 54 
75 
iig 

197 



JAMES. 




I PETER. 


i. 


23 


L. cf W. 


5 




23 


' ' 


8 


11. 


4, 5 


Evangel. 


177 




6 




74, 75 




21 


L. of W. 


354 


V. 


8, g 


Evangel. 


213 




8, g 


< ( 


224, 225 


ii. 


II PETER. 




I 


Evangel 


73 



3/8 



TEXTUAL INDEX. 



Chap. 


Verse. 


Volume. 


Page. 


Chap. 


Verse. 

1 


Volume. 


Page. 


I JOHN. 




REVELATION 




i. 


I 
1-6 


Evangel. 


19 
16-18 














It. 
iii. 


I 
8 


( i 


72 
161-165 


1. 


8 
18 


Evangel. 
L. of W. 


92, 93 

206 


IV. 
V. 


2-3 
i6 
I 


< < 
L. of W. 


19 

18 
8 


111. 
\' i i . 


14 
20 

15 


( t 


5 

34 

201 




6-9 
6-9 


Evangel. 

< ( 


119-141 

125 


xi. 
xxii. 


15 

15 


( ( 


165-167 
66 




7 


< ( 


332 











L\TIN HYMNS WITH ORIGINAL TRANSLA- 
j TIONS. By Abraham Coles, M. D., LL. D. 
D. Appleton & Company, New York. 

In Four Parts, viz.: 

I — Dies Ir^e, in Thirteen Original Versions. Fifth 
Edition, pp. no. 

2 — Stabat Mater (dolorosa). Second Edition, pp. 37. 

3 — Stabat Mater (speciosa). pp. 25. 

4 — Old Gems in New Settings. Being additional se- 
lections from Mediaeval Hymnology. pp. 77. 

All bound together, with Biographical and Critical 
Prefaces, Illustrations, etc. Crown 8vo., pp. 249. 

By the Same Author, 

THE MICROCOSM AND OTHER POEMS. Beau- 
tifully Illustrated. Crown 8vo., pp. 348. $2.50. 

Also, 

THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF OUR LORD, 
In Verse. Being a complete Harmonized Expo- 
sition of the Four Gospels, with Original Notes, etc. 
In Two Volumes, viz.: 

Vol. I., The Evangel (pp. 405), Illustrated with 
28 full-page "Artotype" copies of costly first- 
class Engravings. Crown 8vo. $5.00. 
Vol. II., The Light of the World (pp. 395), 
Illustrated with a full-page "Artotype" copy 
of Munkacsy's celebrated picture of '' Christ 
BefQi'e Pilate.'" Crown 8vo. $2.50. 

The Same, Two Volumes i?i One. Illustrated with Mun- 
kacsy's " Christ Before Pilate'' Crown 8vo., pp. 
405+395 = PP- 8oo- $2.50. 



NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 

'* We commend the volume (Dies Ir.e, /// Thirteen Original Fe?- 
sions) as one of great interest, and an admirable tribute from Ameri- 
can scholarship and poetic taste to the supreme nobility of the original 
poem. Dr. Coles has shown a fine appreciation of the spirit and 
rhythmic movement of the Hymn, as well as unusual command of 
language and rhyme ; and we much doubt whether any translation of 
the Dies Inr, better than the first of the thirteen, will ever be pro- 
duced in English, except perhaps by himself. ... As to the transla- 
tion of the Hymn, it is perhaps the most difficult task that could be 
undertaken. To render Fausi or the Songs of Egmont into fitting 
English numbers, would be easy in comparison. — Richard GnDii 
Whitei^The Albio7i). 

"The book is a gem both typographically and intrinsically ; beau- 
tifully printed at the ' Riverside Press,' in the loveliest antique type, 
on tinted paper, with liberal margins, embellished v/ith exquisite 
photographs of the great masterpieces of Christian Art, and withal 
elegantly and solidly bound in Matthew's best style, a gentleman-like 
book, suggestive of Christmas and the centre-table ; and its contents 
worthy of their dainty envelope, amply entitling it as vv^ell to a place 

on the shelves of the scholar The first two of the Thirteen 

Versions of the Dies L'ce appeared in the ' Newark Daily Advertiser' 
as long ago as 1847. They were extensively copied by the press, and 
warmly commended — particularly by the Rev. Drs. James W. Alex- 
ander and W. R. Williams, scholars whose critical acumen and liter- 
ary ability are universally recognized — as being the best of the 
English versions in double rhyme ; and examples of singular success 
in a difficult undertaking, in which many, and of eminent name, had 
been competitors. The eleven other versions are worthy companions 
of those which have received such eminent endorsement. Indeed, 
we are not sure but that the last, which is in the same measure as 
Crashaw's, but in our judgment far superior, will please the general 
taste most of slV'—Rev, S. I. Prime, D. D. {Neio York Ol'so-ver), 

" There are few versions of the Hymn which will bear to be com- 
pared with these ; we are surprised that they are ^11 so well done." 
William C. Bryant (zV. Y. Evening Post). 

"Dr. Coles has made, we think, the most successful attempt 
at an English translation of the hymn that we have ever seen .... 
He has done so well that we hope he will try his hand'on some of the 
other Latin Hymns. By rendering them in their own metres, and 
with so large a transfusion of their spirit as characterizes his present 
attempt, he will be doing a real service to the lovers of that kind of 



religious poetry in which neither the religion nor the poetry is left out. 
He has shown that he knows the worth of faithfulness." — James 
Russell Lowell {Atlantic Monthly). 

"Of Dr. Coles' remarkable success as respects these particulars 
(namely, faithfulness and variety), no one competent to judge can 
doubt.... For all that enters into a good translation, fidelity to the 
sense of the original, uniform conformity to its tenses, preservation 
of its metrical form without awkwardly inventing, inelegantly abbrevia- 
ting, or violently straining the sense of the words, and the reproduc- 
tion of its vital spirit — for all these qualities Dr. Coles' first translation 
stands, we believe, not only unsurpassed, but unequalled in the Eng- 
lish language." — Christian {Quarterly) Review. 

" Dr. A. Coles has long been known to the literary worid as spec- 
ially successful in the translation of Latin Hymns. His renderings 
of the Dies Im are familiar to many readers. He has now also pre- 
pared a book entitled Old Gems in Sfeiv Settings, an exquisite volume, 
in which we find the De CoUcmpiu Miindi, the Veni Sancte Spiriftis, 
and other fine old favorites skillfully and gracefully translated. The 
grand hymn or poem of Bernard de Clugny, of which the extracts in 
this book are styled Urbs Ccelestis Syon, is rendered in a style very 
nearly resembling the original, and gives the reader, who does not 
understand Latin, an excellent idea of the peculiar characteristics of 
the hymn of Bernard. Besides these, we have the Stadat Mater, with 
a complete history of the noble hymn, and a very fine translation. The 
lovers of old hymns owe a special debt of gratitude to Dr. Coles for 
the good taste and the thorough appreciation and ability which he 
brings to the work of placing these glorious old songs within reach of 
the modern world. We could wish them to become favorites in 
every family, and they will so become in spite of their Latin origin." 
— IVilliain C. Prime {Journal of Commerce). 

" United with a rare command of language and facility of versifica- 
tion, this is the secret of the eminent success with which the Transla- 
tor has reproduced the solemn litany of the Middle Ages in such a 
variety of forms. If not all of equal excellence, it is hard to decide 
as to their respective merits, so admirably do they embody the tone 
and sentiment of the original in vigorous and impressive verse. The 
essays which precede and follow the Hymn, exhibit the learning and 
the taste of the translator in a most favorable light, and show that an 
antiquary and a poet have not been lost in the study of science and 
the practice of a laborious profession, i::" addition to the Thirteen 
Versions of Dies Ircc, the volume contains translations of the Stabat 
Mater, Urbs Cxlestis Syon, Veni Creator Spiritus, and other choice 
mediaeval hymns which have been executed with equal unction and 
felicity. 

" We have also a poem by the same author, entitled The Microcosm, 
read before the Medical Society of New Jersey at its Centenary anni- 
versary. It is an ingenious attempt to present the principles of the 



animal economy in a philosophical poem, somewhat after the manner 
of Lucretius, and combining scientific analysis with religious senti- 
ment. In ordinary hands, we should not regard this as a happy, nor 
a safe experiment, but the dexterity with which it has been managed 
by Dr. Coles, illustrates his versatile talent as well as the originality 
of his conceptions." — George Ripley {Nezv York Tribune). 

" Dr. Coles has been too long away from a public which has already 
shown itself kindly to hftn, and we thank him, especially, for this 
book of his own ( The Microcosm). . . Why should not the wonderful 
make of man — the might and cunning skill that are moulded in him — 
furnish a very choice theme for poetry ? Dr. Coles, accustomed, by 
his profession, to search among and study out these marvels, knowing 
hovv^ they are grouped together, what work they do, and how they are 
fitted for it, believes that here is one of the very noblest themes for 
such use, hitherto strangely left alone. This therefore is the occasion 
of his writing The Microcosm. . The Eustachian Tube, and Cerebellum 
and CEsophagus, made into poetry, must have astonished the well- 
informed Medical Faculty of New Jersey, much as a farmer's smoke- 
house and pig-sty and shed would astonish him, if made into a 
picture. And Dr. Coles has really made them into poetry.. ..Tissue 
and organ, and channel, and duct are very skillfully and beautifully 
described, and made to witness to God's goodness : the skin, the 
nerves, the flesh, the heart, the eye, the tongue, the ear, the seeing, 
hearing, speech, light, tears, sleep, music, the blind, the dumb, the 
living mind. Whatever in man is good, and strong, and fine, and 
beautiful, finds place in Dr. Coles' Poem, and is so set forth that the 
man of science and the man who can read and feel the force of good 
thoughts and tuneful words, and knows nothing of anatomy and 
physiology, beside the cheapest axioms of food and sleep, m^ay alike 
enjoy the reading. Whoever has only grovelling notions of man's 
nature, and knows the body only as an instrument of low pleasure and a 
vehicle of pain and punishment, would here learn something better 
of himself and worthier of the answer which he, like holier men, 
must make, at last. Not that all is preaching. The book is, indeed, 
written by a Christian man, to whom his faith in his Redeemer and 
relationship to God are dearer than all other things ; but the blush of 
maiden-love and the conscious glance of the eye ; the deep mother's 
love for the infant nestling in the bosom, and nursing at the breast ; 
the hallowed happiness of two made one, in Christ ; all these glow in 
his pages, with an attractive beauty beyond the common. All that 
imaginative and eloquent account of the brain and its great faculty. 
we would take, whole, if we could.... If high thoughts, m glowing 
Avords, be noble, is not this which we have just read ?. . . .One meets, 
continually, in this poem, such passages as the following ; and one. 
such, even, would show the fine skill and glowing power of the writer. 

" The second book whose title stands at the head of this article — 
the Stabat Mater — is a translation with very interesting comments. . . . 
Like most poets, the author of The Microcostn writes prose beauti- 



fully, and the reader will never find, in the prose of these volumes, 
anything but what is interesting. In the poem and remarks which 
accompany the Stabat Mater is the utmost justness of criticism, full- 
ness of information, and gracefulness of expression. If as much can 
be learned, elsewhere, of the origin and character, and history of that 
hymn, we may safely say that it can nowhere be learned so pleas- 
antly. These parts of the book, like the corresponding parts of the 
book on the Dies Ira, we hold to be especially valuable." — jRev. Robert 
Lotvell, D. D. {The Church Alonthh'). 

" Dr. Coles has supplied a want and done a graceful work in The 
Microcosm. What the flower or babbling stream is to Wordsworth, 
that is the stranger, more complex, and more beautiful human frame 
to our author. In its organs, its powers, its aspirations, and its 
passions, he finds ample theme for song. . . Everywhere the rhythm is 
flowing and easy, and no scholarly man can peruse the work without 
a glance of wonder at the varied erudition, classical, poetical, and 
learned, that crowds its pages, and overflows in foot-notes. And 
through the whole is a devout religious tone and a purity of purpose 
worthy of all praise." — Newark Daily Advertiser. 

" Dr. Coles' researches, made so lovingly and conscientiously in 
his special field of poetical scholarship, have given him a distinct and 
most enviable position among American authors. We of the younger 
sort learn a lesson of reverent humility from the pure enthusiasm 
with which he approaches and handles his noble themes. The ' tone ' 
of all his works is perfect. He is so thoroughly in sympathy with 
his subjects that the lay reader instantly shares his feeling ; and there 
is a kind of ' white light ' pervading the whole — prose and verse — 
which at any time tranquilizes and purifies the mind." — Edmund C. 
Siedmatt. 

" I have finished the reading of The Microcosm, which has afforded 
me unmingled delight. It is really a remarkable poem, and has pas- 
sages of great beauty and power. It cannot fail to secure the admi- 
ration of all capable of appreciating it. Its ease, its exquisite finish, 
its vivid yet delicate and powerful imagery, and above all its sublime 
religious interest, entitle it to a very high place in our literature." — 
Eev. Robert Ttirnbull, D. D. 

"The idea of The Microcosm is novel and daring, but it is worked 
out with great skill and delicacy. The Evajigei is a work of piety 
and beauty. The Proem opens with strong, vigorous yet melodious 
verse." — John G. Whitticr. 

" The Evangel in Verse, is the ripest fruit of the scholarship, 
taste and poetic talent of one of our accomplished students of Eng- 
lish verse, whose translations of Dies Ira: and other poems have made 
the name of Dr. Coles familiar in the literature of our day. In the 
work before us he has attempted something higher and better than 
any former essay of his skillful pen. He has rendered the Gospel 
story of our Lord and Saviour into verse, with copious notes, giving 



the largest amount of knowledge from critical authorities to justify 
and explain the readings and to illuminate the sacred narrative. . . . 
He excludes everything fictitious, and clings to the orthodox view of 
the character and mission of the God-man. The illustrations are a 
complete pictorial anthology. Thus the poet, critic, commentator 
and artist has made a volume that will take its place among the rare 
productions of the age, as an illustration of the genius, taste, and 
fertile scholarship of the author." — Rev. S. Irenaus Pjime, D. D. {The 
Nexi) York Observer). 

" The purpose of this volume would be usually regarded as beyond 
the scope of poetic composition. It aims to reproduce the scenes of 
the Gospel History in verse, with a strict adherence to the sacred nar- 
rative and no greater degree of imaginative coloring than v/ould 
serve to present the facts in the most brilliant and impressive light. 
But the subject is one with which the author cherishes so profound a 
sympathy, as in some sense to justify the boldness of the attempt. 
The Oriental cast of his mind allures him to the haunts of sacred 
song, and produces a vital communion v/ith the spirit of Hebrew 
poetry. Had he lived in the days of Isaiah or Jeremiah, he might 
have been one of the bards who sought inspiration ' at Siloa's brook 
that flowed fast by the oracle of God.' The present work is not the 
first fruits of his religious Muse, but he is already known to the lovers of 
mediaeval literature by his admirable translations of the Dies Ira. 
.... The volume is brought out in a style of unusual elegance, as 
it respects the essential requisites of paper, print and binding, while 
the copious illustrations will attract notice by their selection of the 
most celebrated works of the best masters." — George Ripley {The Nexo 
York Tribune). 

" The Evangel in Verse is a feast to the eye and ear and heart. The 
careful exegesis, the conscientious loyalty to the statements of the 
Holy Story, the sympathetic reproduction of a remote and Oriental 
past, the sacred insight into the meaning of the Peerless Career, the 
homageful yet manly, unsuperstitious reverence, the rhythm as melo- 
dious as stately, the frequent notes, opulent in learning and doc- 
trine and devotion, the illustrations deftly culled from whatever 
is choice in ancient and modern art, these are some of the many 
excellencies which give to 7'he Evangel in Verse an immortal beauty 
and worth, adding it as another coronet for Him on whose brow are 
many diadems." — Rev. Geo. D. BoardtJian, D. D. 

" I admire the skill which The Evangel displays in investing with 
rainbow hues the simple narrations of tl e Gospels. All, however, 
who have read Dr. Coles' versions of the Dies Ira and other Latin 
Hymns must be prepared to receive any new productions from his 
pen with high expectations. In these da) s when even the clerical 
office seems in many cases insufl5cient to protect from the present 
fashionable form of scepticism, it is a great satisfaction to see a man 
of science and a scholar adhering so faithfully to the simple Gospel." 
—Rev. Charles Hodge, D. D. , LI. D. 



" Dr. Coles is plainly a man of a very religious heart and a deeply 
reverential mind. . . . Moreover he has so much learning in his 
favorite subject, and so much critical instinct and experience, that 
those who can relish honest thinking, and tender and most skillful 
and true deductions, accept his teaching and suggestion with a ready 
— sometimes surprised — sympathy and confidence. Add to all this, 
that he has the sure taste of a poet, and the warm and loving earnest- 
ness of a true believer in the redeeming Son of God, and the catho- 
lic spirit of one who knows v/ith mind and heart that Christianity at 
its beginning was Christianity, and we have the man who can write 
such books as earnest Christian people will welcome and be thankful 

for In this new book he proposes ' that The isz'i?«^'t7 shall be a 

poetic version, and verse by verse paraphrase, so far as it goes, of 
the Four Gospels, anciently and properly regarded as one.' He 
makes an exquisite plea, in his preface, for giving leave to the glad 
words to rejoice at the Lord's coming in the Flesh, for which all other 

beings and things show their happiness In the notes the 

reader will find (if he have skill for such things) a treasure-house, in 
which everything is worthy of its place. Where he has offered new 
interpretations, or set forth at large interpretations not generally re- 
ceived or familiar, he modestly asks only to have place given him. 
and gives every one free leave to differ. Everywhere there is the 
largest and most true-hearted charity. . . . The reader cannot open 
anywhere without finding in these notes, if he be not wiser or more 
learned than ourselves, a great deal that he never saw, or never saw 
so well set forth before." — Rev. Robert Lo^vcll, D. D. {C/mrch Monthly). 

"There is a kind of straightforward simplicity about the poetical 
paraphrases which reminds one of the homelier but still always inter- 
esting verses which John Bunyan sprinkles like drops of heavenly 
dew along the pages of the Pilgrim's Progress. The illustrations 
add much to the work, in the way of ornament, and aid to the imag- 
ination. One among them is of terrible power, as it seems to me, 
such as it would be hard to show the equal of in the work of any 
modern artist. I mean Holman Hunt's 'Scapegoat.' There is a 
whole Theology in that picture. It haunts me with its fearful sugges- 
tiveness like a nightmare. I find The Evangel an impressive and 
charming book. It does not provoke criticism — it is too devout, too 
sincere, too thoroughly conscientious in its elaboration to allovv^ of fault- 
finding or fault-hunting." — Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

' ' I have read a considerable part of The Evangel and with pleasure 
and satisfaction. The versification of the Lord's Prayer is both an 
expansion of the sense and a commentary. The thought has often 
occurred to me what a world of meaning is there v/rapped up, and 
that meaning is admirably brought out." — PVilliaj?i C. Bryant. 



"The skill of Dr. Coles as an artistic poet, his reverent, religious 
spirit, and the exalted flight of his Muse in the regions of holy medi- 
tation are familiar to our readers. It is, therefore, superfluous for 
us to do more than to announce a new and elegant volume from his 
pen — The Microcosm and Other Poems. It is rich in its contents. 
The Microcosm is an essay in verse on the Science of the Human 
Body; it is literally the science of physiology condensed into 1,400 
lines. The many occasional poems that follow are the efflorescence 
of a mind sensitive to the Beautiful and rejoicing in the True; finding 
God in everything, and delighting to trace the Revelation of His 
Love in all the works of His hand. Such a volume is not to be looked 
at for a moment and then laid aside. Like the great epics, it is a 
book for all time, and will lose none of its interest and value by the 
lapse of years. The publishers have given it a splendid dress, and 
the illustrations add greatly to the attractions of this truly elegant 
book." — New York Observer. 

" The flavor of the book — The Microcosm and Other Poems — is most 
quaint, suggesting, on the religious side, George Herbert, and on the 
naturalistic side, the elder Darwin, who, in "The Botanic Garden," 
laid the seed of the revolution in science accomplished by the patient 
genius of his grandson. Some of the hymns for children are beauti- 
ful in their simplicity and truth." — Nezv York Times. 

" The long poem, The Micj'ocos?n , which gives its name to the present 
collection, has m'any beautiful and stately passages. Among the 
shorter pieces following it, is to be found some of the best devotional 
and patriotic poetry that has been written in this country."— The Critic. 

" In this exquisite and brilliantly illustrated volume, the scholarly 
author has gathered up various children of his pen and grouped them 
in family unity. The Microcosm, which forms one-fifth of the volume 
of 350 pages, is an attempt to present, in poetical form, a compen- 
dium of the Science of the Human Body. In originality of conception 
and felicity of expression, it has not been approached by any work of 
our best modern poets. The other poems are all marked by the 
highest poetic taste, having passages of great beauty and power." — 
Frank Leslie" s Illustrated Newspaper. 

"The title-poem in this exquisitely printed and charmingly illustrated 
volume — The Microcosiu and Other Poems — has been for some time 
before the public, and has received generous commendation for the 
tact and skill evinced in handling a very unpromising theme. A 
poetic description, minute and thorough going of the human body 
was a serious undertaking; but Dr. Coles delights in what is difficult 
and hazardous. He had already associated his name forever with the 
mediaeval Latin Hymn, Dies Jra, by publishing no less than thirteen 
distinct versions of it. In the volume before us he gives us three 
more versions. The other poems will not detract from the author's 
previous reputation." — Examiner and Chronicle. 



